


Mad Love

by GirlZombieSlayer



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Best friend's OC is Mr. Torgue's son, Eridium Powers, F/F, Oral Sex, Strap-Ons, Takes place after BL2 cause I can't remember any of that stuff lol, Will add additional ships as story progresses, Zena is pronounced like Xena
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-03-19 22:53:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 46,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18979993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GirlZombieSlayer/pseuds/GirlZombieSlayer
Summary: Zena has loved Moxxi for years but Moxxi keeps on treating her like a child no matter how old she is. She wants Moxxi to be hers and hoped that one day, she’d be lucky enough to refer to Moxxi as “girlfriend”, it just might take a little while as Moxxi has been trying to find that 4th husband, she’s never really thought about a first wife before.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Borderlands 2 does not belong to me, it belongs to gearbox and 2k games. Zena and Zafina belong to me though…Zena’s dad doesn’t belong to me though lol. Dante belongs to my best friend.

Chapter 1

_“People called her insane, most called her idiotic for falling in love with Mad Moxxi, saying the woman will never return the feelings. They don’t know Moxxi like I do. If she could witness the girl lift a runner over her head with no sign of a struggle or witness her stop a Bullymong with one hand, Moxxi would be all over her in an instant.”_

Pandora

Growing up on Pandora was rough, no matter the gender, no matter how they were raised but Zena Blanco turned out...well normal wasn’t the right word for it. Her mother disappeared when she was 2 days old, she was raised solely by her father Doctor Zed Blanco. For 17 years, she was taught Zed’s form of medicine to the point she knew better than to practice on willing people. Almost every single patient Zed operated on died...painfully. That was until she turned 17, she had managed to get a spaceship and go to Elpis where it was rumored her mother was suppose to be. Somehow in all the chaos on Elpis, she managed to find Zafina and convince her mother to come home.

The first thing Zafina did was thank Zed for how Zena turned out. She might’ve been 17 at the time but she could take care of herself without any problem but there was one thing she disliked, her daughter had a crush on Moxxi since she was 15. She thought it was a phase but it never faded. Zafina just learned to deal with it, Moxxi never really showed interest in younger women.

However unbeknownst to Moxxi, under the one sleeve that Zena's top had, her veins glowed a faint purple. It was because of the Eridium shards that fused/bonded with her blood back when she was 17. She had been out at the Tundra Express, having been visiting a younger Tiny Tina when a bandit saw her through the scope of his rifle and began shooting at her. She had managed to keep from getting shot but one bullet struck to close to her right foot and she tripped. It was when she fell that what was an Eridium spike, some assface decided to carve Eridium into it, that sliced into her.

While Zed had managed to get most of the shards out, some of them had already been absorbed. The next day she was able to lift a runner over her head with one hand. It had given her superhuman strength and superhuman stamina, she just never bothered trying to see if she could absorb a lot of bullets before it was too much...getting shot was a bitch. The strength came in handy, especially when her armored skag grew to his adult size and she needed to get him out of the way. Only a small select few knew about and Moxxi was not one of them.

Moxxi couldn't know, Moxxi wouldn't know. When it came to how Zena felt toward Moxxi, she was afraid of how their relationship would change if Moxxi learned she had super strength. The woman loved men or women that were powerful, stronger than her, someone that could easily and most likely dominate her in bed. She wanted Moxxi to like her for her, not for her powers. Whenever Zena came to her for advice, she kept saying to show Moxxi but no, the only way she’d ever do that was if Moxxi was in danger.

The 19 year old, white haired, golden yellow eyes woman was sitting on the edge of the now flying city of Sanctuary. Her left leg propped up on a metal pipe as her right one swung back and forth in the air. Raptor, her armored skag, was sleeping beside her as she screwed on new tips onto her arrows. Most of the Vault Hunters were out doing their own things except Zena, her mother Zafina, and Maya. The Siren had returned to Sanctuary three hours ago and passed out in one of the bunks in the house that served as the Crimson Raiders HQ. 

Twirling an arrow between her fingers, she sighed and shifted to stand up. Raptor rose his head and looked at his human as she gathered up all her arrows and walked away from the edge, he stretched and followed. She stopped at where she had her quiver sitting, on the edge by the staircase leading up to Mad Moxxi’s bar, Moxxxi’s, and slid her arrows into their rightful spots. “Come on buddy.” she spoke as she put her quiver on, buckling it into place and taking her Torgue made bow off Raptor’s saddle.

They had some stuff to do, mainly go to Ellie’s Garage to ask the friendly woman if she could go through her junkyard to make some stuff. She entered Moxxi’s bar and saw the white hair of her mother standing at the bar as she listened to Salvador, he must’ve gotten back while she was busy. “Hey! _Arquera!_ ” he smiled at the sight of her. She tilted her head in confusion as Raptor slowly followed her into the bar. “Ah, I said Archer.”

“Oh, right. Hey Sal.” she high fived him and he lightly pressed his fist to Raptor’s head, the creature pressing into it with what sounded like a rumble of happiness or a purr, she was never too sure. “Mox, can I get a shot?”

The purple clad woman, the woman of her very affection, looked up to see Zena and Raptor. “The usual?”

“Pretty please.” she answered as Zafina kissed her head. “What are you doing today?”

The woman hummed as she ran her fingers through her daughter’s hair. “Oh the usual. Hunting down some bandits for my own amusement due to nothing for me to do.”

A shot glass was placed down, filled with what looked like a mint colored drink. Moxxi winked as Zena took it and downed the shot. It was, as it’s color suggested, a mint flavored drink but with some vanilla, she could barely taste the alcohol. Only she and her mother seemed to drink that. She opened her satchel and held out thirty bucks to Moxxi who took it with a coo, folded the bills up and slid them into the left cup of her bra while winking at Zena.

“Can you get me some psycho masks? At least five?” she asked as she tapped the bar, indicating she wanted another shot. Moxxi just playfully rolled her eyes and poured it.

Zafina rose a brow and shrugged. “Odd number, no pun intended, and sure. Just five?”

“At least five. If you get your hands on more, that’s fine.” she spoke taking the shot glass and downing the shot with a satisfied ‘ahh’ sound. “Need anything while I’m out, Mox?”

“Just for you to bring your cute self back to Sanctuary in one piece, sugar.” smiled the brunette. Zena rose a brow at her with a small smile. “I don’t need anything, but I wouldn’t complain if you found something and brought it back for me.”

That made Zafina laugh. “Greedy little slut aren’t you?” she asked making Zena glare at her and Moxxi look unimpressed, she was used to the name calling, hell she dated Handsome Jack and he called her balloon tits, it was funny to listen to Zena scream at him through her ECHO device though.

Zena lightly tapped her mother’s cheek in a small playful warning before kissing her cheek. She and raptor left the bar and headed to the fast travel station, it was always sort of hard to travel with Raptor but they mastered it in these past few years. She plugged in the location for Ellie’s Garage, held onto Raptor and the two disappeared from Sanctuary and reappeared at Ellie’s. For as long as she could remember, she had been friends with Scooter and that lead to a friendship with Scooter’s sister Ellie, it was sorta hard to believe that Moxxi was their mother. Had nothing to do with how they looked, Zena could care less about that, it was just they didn’t act like their mother did.

The 19 year old released Raptor and looked for the woman. “Ellie?!” she shouted.

“Hang on!” shouted a southern accent. Ellie walked out of her garage and smiled. “Hey there cutie!”

“Can I ransack your junkyard?” she asked making the woman chuckle.

“Depends, gonna build something badass with what ya find?”

Was she? To be honest, she had no idea what she wanted to build. “Possibly?” she answered, looking completely unsure.

The more larger of the two gave a bark of laughter and nodded. “Go ahead, just be careful back there. Saw some spiderants last time I was getting parts. Don’t need maw’s wrath coming down on me if she learns you got injured in my junkyard.”

Smiling and doing some lame finger guns towards Ellie, she made her way to the junkyard located behind the garage with Raptor following. She didn’t have a lot of storage on her, before it was so much easier, she’d drive her Bandit Technical too Sanctuary but now she needed to fast travel with whatever she found, so she had her satchel and the two on Raptor’s saddle, they weren’t exactly big satchels. She jumped up onto a pile of junk, slipping a bit but managing to catch herself, as she climbed up the junk. As she dug through the junk, looking at certain pieces and debating, The Dust’s sun beat down on her exposed back and the heat was just unbearable. She wore a top that stopped an inch or two below her breasts with one sleeve, her right arm with her thumb coming through the sleeve, it was a blue on the sides with red and a checkered pattern on the front with the Torgue logo across her breasts.

With her top, she had on simple black jeans and black boots. Almost all of her tops were designed the same just either different Manufacturer logos/designs or solid colors. She dug out what looked like a branding iron and flinched as she saw it was a heart, both Ellie and Moxxi had heart tattoos and from what she remembered Scooter saying, it was a Hodunk thing. She grabbed the branding iron at where the heart met with the handle and snapped it clean off. She’d need to sand it down, where she broke the handle off, but she could work with that.

Not wanting to risk it getting deformed in her satchel, she unbuckled the satchel strap and put the strap through the middle of her heart before buckling it back, this way it was less likely to be ruined. She kept digging through the junk, being mindful not to cut her hands, when she grabbed a bundle of sawblades. Their blades were dull but they looked unused, she knew Krieg had a saw blade on his belt but also that, like the ones in her hands, it was dull and he mostly wore it cause it looked cool. Opening her satchel, she carefully put the bundle in there, she could think of something to do with that later.

Raptor sat down as he watched his human move about the junk, hoping from one ruined van to another instead of climbing down and walking around. She grabbed hold of a broken car with one hand and pulled it out of the way before throwing it over the pile, listening to it crash behind the junk pile. She huffed as she crouched on the edge of the crushed van she was standing on and looked through the junk before her eye caught what looked like a large piece of sheet metal. She could use that but knew it would be too hard to get back to Sanctuary, she didn’t want to fast travel with it. She shook her head and dug around until she found a smaller piece of sheet metal, would be so much easier to fast travel with.

She climbed off the van with it as she walked over to Raptor. She rested it against the saddle before taking out the rope from one of the satchels and throwing it over the sheet metal, tying it around to keep it secured in place. It was still too large for her to carry but was more manageable and fit nicely on the saddle, sure a little bit stuck out at each end but it wasn’t overly large like the last piece. She rubbed Raptor’s head as she walked by him and he let out a small rumbling sound, a smile forming on her face at the sound, she knew it meant he was happy. She wanted to go back to Sanctuary with more than just her three chosen options but at this rate, she’d be digging for hours just to reach what was buried on the bottom.

While digging around, she did come across a semi-broken Bandit rifle. It was missing it’s trigger...how the fuck was a gun missing it’s trigger? Shrugging, she tossed it to land near Raptor and began digging around some more. After a full two hours, yes she spent that long digging around in Ellie’s junkyard, she had found a broken Psycho axe, a full face mask with gas mask built in, some metal pipes (well those were everywhere but she wanted a couple), and an ammo case full of old bullets. She strapped the pieces too big to fit in her satchels to Raptor’s saddle before going to the fast travel station with her pet.

Stopping as she saw Ellie, she left Raptor by the station and walked over to the woman. “Got any spare spray paint I can have?”

The woman thought about it before nodding. “Sure do. Check the locker over there.” she motioned with one hand as she worked on the engine of a bandit technical. The locker opened and she saw several cans of spray paint. Most of it was black, white, or red but she took two cans of each before spotting a purple and pink can. She had more than enough spray paint back at home but more wouldn’t hurt. She took the two and stuck them into her satchel before waving at Ellie as she walked over to Raptor.

The poor soul that had been waiting to use the Fast Travel station let out a shriek as Raptor came through and nearly plowed him over. Zena snorted with laughter at the man’s reaction and lead her skag out of Pierce’s Station. They had to cut through Moxxi’s to get to where she and her mother lived, it was the more shorter route rather than needing to go the whole way around. She patted the skag as he moved through the bar quickly, running out through the main entrance and sitting down by the door of her home.

“You smell like metal.” sniffed Moxxi, looking a little bothered by it.

“Mm...I smell like I’ve just spent the last two hours digging through a junkyard.” retorted the younger woman. “Mom back yet?” The woman shook her head as she cleaned a dirty glass. “Alright, I’ll be back later. I need a shower. I feel grimey.” The bartender rose a brow as Zena turned around, the woman completely oblivious to the fact the woman watched her ass as she walked away.

The 19 year old unlocked the apartment and unloaded Raptor, even taking his saddle off, and the skag went into his makeshift home in the alley between her home and the home next door. She sat everything on the table near the windows, it’s where she worked mainly, and then went up the stairs to the bathroom. She stripped down, tossing her clothes into the basket Zafina had stuck in there for dirty clothes, and looked at her right arm. She flexed her fingers a few times as a shock of pain went through her hand. She then looked into the mirror, six months ago her face had been unimpaired by the harshness of Pandora.

Six months ago, she had actually liked Rakks. She had let her guard down when hunting bullymongs, she was more focused on getting a bullymong then what was going on in her surroundings. She heard the telltale shriek of a rakk about to attack and turned at the wrong moment, it’s claws made contact with her face. She ran her fingers down it as she stared at her scar, it started an inch above her eyebrow and made its way down, skipping over her eyelid and restarting just under her eye where it ended just below her cheek boke.

Zena let out a soft sigh as she sneered at herself, mainly angry that she had let the Rakk get the jump on her. It took a full month to heal and the top part of her scar needed stitches due to how deep the claw had went in. Moxxi often told her the scar added character and no matter what, she was a beautiful girl with it. Thankfully the scar turned out to be thin rather than thick, it was thin enough that it didn’t distract people like some of Brick’s deep looking scars. She turned to her shower and turned the water on, switching the water to come out of the shower head rather than the faucet.

Once the water was warm enough, she jumped into the shower and let the water run across her body. Her eyes shutting as she let the water beat against the top of her head and shoulders, swaying ever so slightly as she felt more relaxed. She tilted her head back and exhaled, she needed to wash up. After ten minutes of just standing there, she grabbed her shampoo and worked to washing her white hair and she had a lot of hair so it took a while. She had some of her hair between both hands as she rubbed her lathered up hands together and slid them down her waist length hair.

The sound of the front door opening and shutting caught her attention, she paused in the lathering of her hair to grab the shower curtain and draw it more closed than she already had it. “I got your masks, I put them on your table.” spoke Zafina’s voice.

“You okay? I thought you’d be gone longer.” spoke the 19 year old as she tipped her head back to wash the shampoo out of her hair.

She heard her mother grunt. “I got shot, had Zed remove the bullet but I got some Eridium...fucking finally.”

Zena stopped as she had her head tilted back and her fingers in her hair. “Tonight?”

“Tonight kiddo.”

Since Zafina figured out through some notes she found at what she assumed was an abandoned research outpost, she discovered if she put more Eridium shards into a self made cut, it was possible the new shards would balance out what was already in Zena’s blood. That it would possibly stop the pain, something Zafina has been struggling with trying to stop for the past two years. The Eridium in Zena’s blood often caused random moments of pain, although any drastic change in her emotions also caused pain. The only thing that took the edge off the pain was one of Zed’s Insta-Health syringes, it had gotten to the point she carried one or two in her satchel at all time just in case. She sighed and moved onto washing her body quickly.

The older white haired woman was dumping her stuff out onto the table she used for her own stuff as Zena came jogging down the stairs. She was wearing a solid black top similar to her Torgue top but she had the sleeve pulled up to her elbow and instead of her jeans, she had put on a pair of shorts since she wouldn’t leave Sanctuary any more tonight, unless it was dire. She moved to her table and sat that her mother had gotten at least seven Psycho masks, one of which was cracked at the top and she tilted her head. She took it out and used her strength to make the mask snap in half. She pressed one half to her face and looked towards her mother, a snort of laughter leaving her as half of Zena’s smile showed.

It was shortly around 11pm, Moxxi needed to close the bar up and was on her way back from Scooter’s garage, she often liked to pop in and see her annoying son but damn if she didn’t love him. She might not have shown it all that much but Ellie and Scooter were her loves, she loved and would kill to keep them safe, although she knew very well that they could take care of themselves. She paused as she heard muffled crying or screaming coming from inside of Zena and Zafina’s house. Knitting her brows, she approached the door and knocked on it firmly. The door opened half way and while the brunette expected to see one of the women, she was surprised to see Zed standing there.

“What is it?” he asked as a muffled sob came from behind him.

Moxxi stood on her tiptoes and saw Zafina over Zena, tearful golden yellow eyes looked at Moxxi and the woman inhaled sharply. “What are you doing?!” she snapped out.

The doctor looked back at his daughter then back at Moxxi. “It’s family business.” he spoke before shutting the door and locking it just before Moxxi grabbed the doorknob to try and open the door.  
The woman shouted out something incoherent as she jiggled the doorknob before kicking the door. “DAMN YOU!” she shouted.

Zed moved away from the door and walked over to where Zena had her head tilted back, tears leaving her eyes as Zafina sat the knife down. “How deep is it?” asked Zed.

“Deep enough.” she spoke grabbing the Eridium shard she had found while hunting bandits and picked up her non-bloodied knife to strike at it as hard as she could, several shards breaking off and hitting the table. “Zed, I need to push them into the cut, she’s going to feel a lot of pain.” She saw Zena’s hand start making a fist as her veins glowed a faint purple. “Ah! No!” She grabbed Zena’s fist and forced it to unfold. “If you do that then the blood will come out faster! It’s why we ask people to do that when we need to draw blood, it presents the veins better but it’ll also force more blood out.”

Moving her notebook, having copied the notes of the ones she found at that outpost. “It said she needs to match her body weight. Honey, honey much do you weigh?”

Zena crossed her eyes in pain as she thought. “A hundred and sixty-eight.” she managed.

“A hundred and sixty-eight.” she repeated as she flipped through the pages before finding the right page. “A hundred and sixty-eight pounds requires that I give her, four pieces. Sweetie…” she turned to her daughter who hummed, blood sliding down her arm from where her mother had cut, she was trying not to focus on the pain in her arm. “This is going to hurt, I can’t lie to you about that.”

The man moved over to his daughter and pushed the stick between her mouth for her to bite down on, the young girl clamping her teeth ever so slightly down on it before letting out a strangled noise as the first piece was pushed into the cut. With each piece, the stick began to break more and more. As Zafina pushed in the final and forth piece, the stick snapped in half and she let out a cry of pain as her mother clamped her hand down over the cut.

The older white haired woman snapped her fingers as she pointed towards a medical bag. “Got it.” said Zed moving to grab it, he passed it to the woman as he shushed their daughter gently and told her what a good job she had done. Zafina took the rubbing alcohol, pouring it onto the wound only to grunt as a foot slammed into her stomach. “Okay, okay…” she huffed out as she looked down at her daughter. “Natural reaction...ow…”

She took out the Insta-health in her bag, she injected it into her and watched as the wound half way closed up. It wouldn’t need stitches but she’d need to keep an eye on it for the rest of the night. She pressed gauze to the bleeding wound and wrapped bandages around her arm as tight as she could but without cutting off any circulation. “She’ll be fine?” asked Zed.

“It bonded with her the first time, if the notes I found and copied are correct, it’ll balance everything out and stop the pain she keeps getting.” answered the older white haired woman as she put her hands on her hips. “You can go home, I’ll probably put her in my bed for the night to keep an eye on the wound in case it starts bleeding more.”

The doctor ran his hands across Zena’s cheeks as the young girl looked worn out, the pain most likely took a toll on her body. “But her super strength…”

“Won’t go away.” reassured the 38 year old. “The notes stated that once Eridium bonded with someone’s blood stream, it was impossible to reverse the effects. It’s already done its job, the rest will help her.”

Zed sighed as he leaned down and kissed Zena’s head. He felt his daughter lean against him and hum softly as her eyes closed. “I should really think about putting a vending machine in here for her.” That made his ex-girlfriend, never wife, chuckle.

“Sounds like a plan.” she nodded. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

The doctor opened the door, looked both ways to make sure Moxxi wasn’t ready to pounce him the second he stepped out, and left. The older woman carefully lifted her daughter up into her arms and carried her up to the bedroom to get some sleep.

The three didn’t see Moxxi again until the following morning, apparently the brunette had kicked in the door of Zed’s clinic and demanded to know where Zena was and if she was okay. Zed was so shocked, he just said she was at home sleeping or eating breakfast at this time of day. Zena was sitting in the bar with her mother when the brunette approached the house door, ready to knock but stopped as she saw the two white haired women sitting at the bar. She walked in, glared at the two as she walked around her counter, and got behind it as Zena rubbed her thumb against her fingertips, the bandage covering up most of her hand and even the top of her hand to hide the veins that were currently glowing a faint purple. A shot glass was placed in front of both of them as Moxxi grabbed the alcohol she mixed together for them.

“What happened?” she asked making Zafina look up from the notebook she was reading. A black brow as raised in question, yeah for some reason both mother and daughter had black eyebrows and eyelashes with their stark white hair. “Don’t do that. What. Happened?” She motioned to Zena.

The 19 year old looked at Moxxi with a small smile. “I had an accident with the saw last night, it wasn’t working properly so I was trying to fix it and it went off. Cut the top of my arm, hurt like a bitch.”

The brunette looked unconvinced but instead of pressing the matter, she poured both of their shots. “Are you going out and doing you’re usual, sugar?”

“Mom confirmed the wound is a bit too...bad for that. I need to wait another day, take an insta-health every three hours up until I go to bed tonight. So I’m gonna chill and work on my projects, I never have time for them when I’m Vault Hunting.” informed Zena as Zafina clanged their shot glasses together before they drank them. “Then tomorrow...eh I dunno yet. I’ll figure that out later.”

“Well...then I’ll bring you pizza in a few hours.” stated the brunette, Zena blinked several times in surprise. “If you’re going to be working on your projects, you need food and what better way then having some of your favorite pizza.” A smile formed on the younger woman’s face and she mouthed a thank you to Moxxi.

After downing a second shot, Zafina left to meet up with Salvador and clear out some bandits as Zena went back home to work on the stuff she said she was going to work on. She had her medical mask, which looked as if it had shiny holographic teeth on it, as she spray painted the heart a shade of pink, she didn’t wear gloves cause she didn’t care if she had spray paint on her hands and fingers for a set amount of time, she liked it actually. She had a plan, a weird plan but a plan. She used her teeth to break the tie holding the bundle of saw blades together and laid out 5 saw blades. She was going to cut out each letter of Moxxi’s name from each blade, except the Os cause those would stay as whole saw blades, and make something for her to hang up in her bar. Taking a marker, she bit the cap off and did each letter as she knit her brows together, drawing a small heart attached to the top of the I.

She powered up her saw, one that consisted of a rather think but sharp blade compared to what she was going to carve into. She put the medical mask back over her mouth and carefully guided the saw into the blade, watching it cut through the metal. She moved the blade to cut the metal out and sat each letter aside once it was done, she needed to work on some spray painting after. Once she got the I out, needing to get a little too close to the saw for her liking to make sure the heart was easily noticeable as a heart but needing to still be attached to the I. Shutting the saw down, she pushed it back into it’s corner and unplugged it so nobody could accidentally turn it on and injure themselves.

Zena sat down in her seat and grabbed her Insta-Health, pushing the needle into the same spot her mother had done earlier in the morning and injected herself with its contents. She tossed the syringe into the bucket her father insisted she throw them into and picked up the M to start sanding the edges. She spent a lot of time focusing on dulling the newly cut metal that she didn’t realize it was around 2pm when Moxxi knocked on the door and opened without waiting.

“Whoa!” she shouted with a laugh, jumping up and making sure she was in the way of the stuff on the table. “Could’ve waited till I opened the door.”

Moxxi shrugged and held the cardboard box out to her. “Meat Lovers pizza.”

Zena smiled as she held the cardboard box of pizza and sat it on the empty spot of her work space, positioning it so if Moxxi looked over she didn’t see anything of importance, she wanted what she was working on to be a surprise after all. “Thanks Mox, I didn’t realize how much time passed.”

“Can I see…”

“No. You can’t see what I’m working on until I’m done.” she informed with a smirk. The brunette showed a playful pout and she rolled her golden yellow eyes. “Pout all you want, you’re not seeing it until I’m done.”

Sighing, the woman waved a hand. “Fine, fine. I should get back to the bar before Salvador comes back and finds it unattended, last time he got through three bottles of Rakk ale before I got back.” Hands rested on Zena’s shoulders as Moxxi pushed herself up onto her toes to press a kiss to Zena’s cheek. “See you later, sugar.”

Zena’s cheeks turned a nice shade of red at the kiss and was thankful that Moxxi didn’t tease it for her when leaving. The door shutting behind the bar owner snapped the 19 year old out of her stupor and she blinked several times. Running her fingers across her cheeks, she felt the different texture that laid there, Moxxi had left a lip print and Zena refused to do anything about it until her mother noticed...she’d just play stupid and claim she didn’t know it was there. Devouring her pizza, she finished up the Moxxi sign and welded all of the letters together before doing the same with a chain to hang up the Moxxi sign with. She spray painted the sign pink, red and purple since those were the main colors that Moxxi used before finally feeling happy with how it looked. 

Pushing the last piece of pizza into her mouth, yes she hate an entire pizza pit on her own, she tugged up her mask and grabbed her black spray paint and switched the nozzles out. She moved it quickly across the cloth she had on the table and was happy with how thin the stream of spray paint that came out was. She shook her head slightly and held the can over the side of the M and signing ‘Zena Blanco’ down the side of first line in the M. She waited until the spray paint was dry before grabbing a cloth to cover it up and opened her door with one hand before walking towards Moxxi’s as she heard laughter and she was nearly knocked down by Gaige, she was chasing after Maya. When she entered the bar, she saw Zafina slid into a booth and exhale slowly as she tilted her head back and closed her eyes.

“Get anything cool?” she inquired making Zafina reach into her left pocket before tossing a small bag of what looked like different creature claws onto the table. “Oh. I could use those.”

“That’s why I got them baby girl.” Zafina spoke as her head lolled back before she twitched. Zena sat the sign down on the table and grabbed her mother’s legs, turning her so her legs were propped up on the bench. “Thanks.”

Her daughter just nodded and grabbed the sign off the table, leaving the small bag where it sat on the table. “Heya sugar!” smiled the brunette as she saw Zena walking over. “Whatcha make?”

Carefully putting it on the counter, she pushed it towards her. “For you.”

Moxxi stared down at the covered item before looking up at Zena, she knew the girl had been working on something but she never thought it would be for her. She tossed the cloth off the sign and looked down at the sign. A smile forming on her face as she grabbed the side of the M and the side of the I, her thumb rubbing against Zena’s name. “Sugar…”

Zena blushed a little bit and cleared her throat. “I...I just wanted something I made in your bar.”

Moxxi blew her a kiss and turned to find a place to hang it up when she heard a loud scream of surprise. She spun around quickly and sort of frowned at the sight of Mister Torgue’s son, Dante hugging Zena around the waist. He was a handsome young man, was built almost like his father just not...as beefy, but why did his friendship with Zena bother her so much? She turned back to the wall and hung the sign up in the middle of the wall behind the bar making Zena’s smile widen.

The young man sat Zena down and patted her back. “Heya Mox, can we get a meat lover’s pizza?”

“Yes! I’m hungry!” giggled the 19 year old.

The older woman’s mouth fell open slightly as she stared at the young woman. “I just fed you!”

“I’m a growing girl!” she retorted. “Okay no, I’m just really hungry and you fed me like three hours ago. It’s after five in the afternoon, Mox. I waited patiently for the paint to dry. I mean...look at these fingers.” she held her hands up and wiggled her spray paint stained fingers.

Moxxi let out an annoyed noise as she leaned onto the counter and took Zena’s face in her hands. “Fine. Fine...just fine.” she groaned playfully. “Your mother want anything?”

Maya walked up and chuckled. “Zaf is knocked the fuck out.”

“That would be a hard no.” responded Zena making Moxxi snort with laughter.

Dante lead Zena back over to the booth Zafina was sleeping at, her hood was brought over her head and covering her eyes as she slept, her hands stuffed into her pockets. She slid into the booth and pushed the bag aside as Dante followed her into the seat. “So, how’s…” he motioned to her arm.

“Fine. Fine.” she responded.

He stared at the bandage probably bit longer than he should’ve before running a hand through his jet black hair. “So dad’s doing a tournament.” She looked at him curiously. “Cause his arena is built in a vault.” Fuck, that’s right. There was numerous other vaults. She remembered something about it when they took on Handsome Jack. Moxxi came over and set the pizza down before walking away without a word. “Dad suggested you might be interested in playing. Winning the right to open the vault.”

Opening up the cardboard box, she pulled out a piece and sank her teeth into the piece. “Yeah, I’ll come by in the morning. Mom said my wound should be healed by then.”

“Sweet. I’ll let dad know, he was super excited over me asking if you’d like to be apart of the tournament.” he chuckled.

Mister Torgue had been excited every since he watched Zena stop a Bandit Technical with just her hands when someone tried to run her over in the Badass Crater of Badassitude. Instead she nearly destroyed the engine and killed every bandit in the truck. Claimed she would be his number 1 star in his arena but she wasn’t interested, but when all of that happened she was trying to help the Vault hunters take down a certain egomaniac named Jack. Now she could use the money, sure she did jobs for everyone that needed something done but fighting in Torgue’s Arena could be a lot more fun. The two spoke about things she’d need for the Arena, specifically she’d need to bring her own weapons and would need to find a sponsor once getting there.

Once every piece of pizza was gone, he hugged her and left. He needed to get back before his dad started to worry, as big and strong of a man as Torgue was, he had no problem voicing that Dante was his “Precious baby boy”. Moxxi was cleaning her bar when she saw Zena fold up the cardboard box and shove it into the trash before pocketing the baggy that had been sitting on the table and grabbing Zafina under the arms, sliding her forward to the edge of the booth’s seat. The older woman muttered something but Zena slid an arm under her mother’s legs and hoisted her up without effort at all, the brunette stopping mid clean to stare at the 19 year old.

Zena looked back and saw Moxxi staring at her. “Night Mox.” she spoke before walking away to bring Zafina home.

“Night.” whispered the brunette.

Getting Zafina into her bed wasn’t hard, Zena did remove her jacket and draped the jacket over the chair before removing her mother’s boots. She covered her mother up and exited her bedroom, leaving the door wide open as she always did. When entering her own room, she carefully unwrapped her bandages and saw a rather raw looking healed up wound. Rubbing her thumb against the scab, she flinched slightly, she hated where the wound was but she knew she’d deal with it. Taking an insta-health out of her nightstand drawer, she uncapped the needle and pushed it into her arm, injecting herself with the medicine she knew would help her wound. She knew what she had done back at Moxxi’s, she had lifted Zafina up without any show of effort but if anything, Moxxi hadn’t seen that and if Moxxi hadn’t seen it, than she wouldn’t question it.

Zena wrapped bandages around her wound and tied it off at the end with her free hand and her teeth before tossing the baggy of creature claws into one of her drawers. She walked up to the weapon rack that she had built several months ago and looked all of her brand named bows. It took a lot of money to ask companies like Maliwan and Dhal to make her compound or recurve bows. She took down the Maliwan Quiver and sat it aside, she often mixed and matched her weapons with her quivers, before taking down the Torgue bow. Going to Torgue’s tournament with a bow he got made especially for her, for free, would make him the happiest ever.

Setting the quiver and bow onto her main table, she went through her clothes before pulling out an outfit she had not worn in a very long time. The top was mostly blue but it had pink paint like splotches all over the place with Tiny Tina’s trademade bunny symbol on her right breast, her pants matched but were mainly pink with blue splotches. She snorted with laughter as she looked at it, she never really had a reason to wear it but why not? It would probably make the teen excited to learn she wore the outfit she gave her to Torgue’s Tournament. Folding the clothes up, she laid them beside her weapons before setting her black boots beside them.

Opening up a drawer in her dresser, she pulled out a pistol and sat it beside her bow. She couldn’t just go into the tournament with a bow...well she could but she wasn’t gonna. She laid her medical mask, the one she wore when creating Moxxi’s sign, on top of her clothes before walking over to her bed. She dumped her satchel out and tossed it over onto the table, she always liked to leave Sanctuary with an empty satchel, not counting whatever knife she brought with her as backup. She spent the next few hours working in her sketchbook, trying to figure out what to make next with the materials she got from Ellie’s junkyard but fell asleep around 10pm.

When Zena woke up early in the morning, she was covered up and her sketchbook was on her nightstand with her pencil laying beside it. Her mother must’ve woken up sometime in the middle of the night, whether cause she didn’t want to sleep anymore or to use the bathroom, and covered her up. She rubbed at her eyes and groaned as rolled over onto her back, she could hear Salvador’s loud voice from what was most likely Moxxi’s bar, through her open window. “Did you carry me?” asked her mother’s voice. She looked over and nodded. “Why? Did Moxxi see you?”

“She saw me holding you but whether she noticed I lifted you with no effort, I don’t know. I’m not going into the bar today, you can feel her out for me?”

“Not feeling up that whore.” spoke Zafina making Zena look annoyed. “I know what you meant, I had too. Where you going?”

Zena sat up and stretched with a loud groan. “Torgue Arena, he wants me to join the tournament. Dante came to visit last night.”

The 38 year old woman nodded and looked towards the table, chuckling as she saw the clothes. “Wearing the outfit Tina gave you like three months ago.”

“Why not? Tina would be ecstatic to learn I killed people in Torgue’s Tournament wearing it.” shrugged the 19 year old.

Zafina nodded with a chuckle. “Made a pot of coffee, get some before you leave and try to eat. Last time you didn’t eat before you left and you ate nearly four boxes of pizza. I’d prefer if you had some variety in your diet.”

Yawning, Zena gave her mother a thumbs up and relaxed on her bed a bit with a small groan. She really needed to get up. She sat up and moved to the edge of her bed as her mother went to return downstairs, She got dressed in her outfit and clipped her quiver onto her back before grabbing her satchel and bow. She got herself a cup of coffee and made herself two burritos to take with her, one she’d eat on the way to Pierce’s Station and the other she’d eat once she arrived at the Badass Crater of Badassitude. She downed her coffee before going into the bathroom and brushing her teeth quickly, followed by her hair and then kissed her mother on the cheek before exiting the house..

“Raptor.” Zena called as she patted her thigh, she heard the skag yawn inside of his makeshift home and come out. “Come on buddy.” He nudged her with his head and she rubbed at it. “We’re going to the Badass Crater.”

She ended up splitting her burrito in half with Raptor, cause he wanted it and nearly tackled her over for it. When cutting through the bar, she looked confused as to why one of the civilians was standing behind the counter and attending to the bar. Where was Moxxi? Zena and her Skag arrived in Pierce’s Station and the 19 year old scrolled through the destinations until she found where she wanted to go. She grasped Raptor’s saddle and hit the fast travel button, both the young woman and her creature disappeared.

They landed in the Badass Crater of Badassitude and Zena exhaled as she looked out over it. She could see the arena in the distance and she chuckled. “Alright Raptor.” He looked at her curiously before she hoisted herself up onto his saddle. “Time to have some fun.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lemme just say for this chapter, writing Mister Torgue is a huge pain in the ass considering he’s always shouting/screaming and all of his dialogue is in CAPS. Also certain parts like side missions for the DLC, have been left out or altered for the sake of me wanting to get this out soon lol and I can’t remember a lot of it or find the right videos. There are some parts in the videos I’ve managed to watch where Torgue isn’t screaming in CAPs but it’s only a few times because he’s always screaming lol.
> 
> This was also the longest chapter I've written but I'm happy with it. I'm hoping to update again sometime in the next two or three weeks :)

_Badass Crater of Badassitude_

Raptor couldn’t even take two steps after Zena got on his saddle before someone began shouting over her ECHO. “WELCOME TO THE BADASS CRATER OF BADASSITUDE, BADASS!” typical Torgue fashion, always gotta scream. “OH MY GOD IT’S ZENA!” She flinched and shook her head. If it was possible, it sounded like he screamed louder. “ZENA, THIS IS MISTER TORGUE BROADCASTING FROM DEEP ORBIT!”

“I-I know, Mister Torgue.” she managed out, she could feel a headache coming on.

“IF YOU’RE HERE THAT MEANS YOU WANNA WIN OUR TOURNAMENT, OPEN A VAULT, AND EARN THE TITLE OF NUMBER ONE BADASS!” She wasn’t entirely sure if Torgue had a voice level that wasn’t screaming, she was surprised Dante was usually so calm. “NOW BEFORE YOU GET STARTED YOU GOTTA DIGITALLY SIGN OUR LEGAL WAIVER!”

She cleared her throat and crossed her eyes a little. “Dad’s...excited.” spoke Dante’s voice over the ECHO. “He’s in Deep Orbit screaming about murdering people and explosions while I’m down here. Sometimes screaming about murdering people and explosions.”

Nudging Raptor to start moving, Zena chuckled. “Do you…”

“I have meds for any oncoming headaches, don’t worry. I’ll see you when you make it to Torgue Arena.” Dante interrupted.

The skag picked up pace and took off running towards the location she guided him in, following the marker that had been placed on her ECHO map. She approached a console and jumped off Raptor. Approaching it, she tapped the button on the screen only to watch it short circuit and she jumped back in time just as it exploded. “JUST KIDDING! F*CK THE LEGAL WAIVER! YOU’RE IN TORGUE LAND NOW, SUCKER! JUST HEAD TO THE ARENA, WHILE I PLAY YOU SICK GUITAR SOLO!” He automatically started doing his air guitar solo...singing?

Zena rubbed at her temples and shook her head as she walked back to Raptor. “Maybe this was a bad idea buddy.” she whispered making him growl in return. She grabbed onto his saddle and hoisted herself up onto him. “Lets go.” He took off running and she guided him with her feet, he knew if she pressed against his right side that meant he had to go left and if she pressed against his left side, it meant he had to go right.

He carefully jumped down from a cliff and landed on a piece of rock sticking out of the side of the cliff, the young woman gripping the saddle tighter than she had been before. He continued this until he landed on the ground and automatically took off running towards the arena. “RIGHT NOW, YOU’RE RANKED FIFTEENTH ON THE LEADERBOARDS, WHICH PUTS YOU BEHIND MY GRANDMA BUT AHEAD OF A GUY SHE GUMMED TO DEATH. IT TOOK SEVERAL HOURS. IF YOU WANT TO OPEN THAT VAULT, YOU GOTTA RISE IN THE LEADERBOARDS!” Zena opened her mouth to answer but he cut her off. “ALSO YOU NEED A SPONSOR FOR MOTHERF*CKIN LEGAL REASONS! GET TO THE ARENA AND WE’LL SET YOU UP WITH ONE!”

“Okay.” was all she could manage. 

Raptor was racing towards what looked like a town just before the Arena with something solid slammed into her chest and she was thrown off her Skag. She slammed down into the sand and released a wheeze like gasp as the wind was knocked out of her. Her vision was swimming a bit, her head having hit the ground rather hard regardless of it being mostly sand, she saw what looked like a Psycho hover over her with his axe raised but before he could do anything, Raptor had his mouth on the psycho’s head and shaking viciously. Zena rolled over and blinked several times as she registered the screaming that was around her. Of course a town of psychos would be in front of Torgue’s Arena, why wouldn’t there be?

She reached for her bow but felt nothing on her back and looked panicked. Where was her bow? She saw it laying in the sand a few feet away from her and saw a Psycho running towards her. Scrambling for her bow, she pulled an arrow out of her quiver and seized her bow up with one hand, quickly notched the arrow and fired. The arrow lodging itself into the man’s throat, her hand catching the axe he dropped and swung it at another Psycho coming at her.

The buzz saw attached to the makeshift handle slicing into the next Psycho’s throat. Raptor tackled a Goliath coming at her and clamping his mouth down onto his head and ripped it off, tossing the head aside. She moved back towards Raptor as another Goliath aimed his gun at her. The skag moving and grabbing so Zena could aim a quick arrow and hit him in the eye hold his helmet had, his body dropping to the ground. She fucking HATES Goliaths, especially when their helmets were removed they got more powerful...Pandora was fucking weird. She stood up and felt Raptor lean against her in case she needed the support, she rubbed at his head and exhaled slowly.

“Come on buddy.” she whispered as the two started walking towards the Arena that was just on the other side of the town.

As the human and Skag approached the Arena they saw a rather large man with what looked like metal or even robot parts attached to him. He looked like he was in an interview. She tilted her head as she watched.

The interviewer was speaking, asking a question it sounded like. “Piston, what would you say to those who accused you of cheating -- of rigging fights to gain your number one position?”

He let out a rather gravely laugh. “Oh Jeffery. Well I guess I’d say I’d have to do this…” Zena inhaled sharply as he shot the interviewer in the chest and began stomping on him. “And then I’d tell them to NEVER! CALL! ME! A! CHEATER!” He stopped kicking and looked down at the body. “And you can quote me on that.”

She already didn’t trust him. Every alarm bell in her head were going off. This was a man that would most likely turn on her at any given chance. She just stared at him with large golden ees that read she was scar, Raptor growled softly as he put his head under her arm to let her hand rest on the top of his head. Piston looked over at her and laughed.

“Over hear Newbie!” She slowly approached him, cautious of what she had just witnessed. “You are not in the presence of greatness.”

“I don’t see Mad Moxxi.” she spoke making him narrow his eyes at her. “You said in the presence of greatness, I don’t see Moxxi.”

He seemed to ignore her statement. “Here’s what Piston is offering chickadee -- Piston will sponsor you. Piston will take you under his muscly wing, and we will open that Vault together. I’ve already set up your first fight in the arena. Get in there, and show’em what Piston and the Vault Hunter are a force to be reckoned with!”

She cleared her throat and walked around him as Torgue came through her Echo device. “IS IT JUST ME OR DOES IT SEEM LIKE HE’S GONNA BETRAY THE F*UCK OUTTA YOU?!” Well it was nice to know that Torgue felt the same way as her.

Zena walked into the Arena and pressed her hand against the bounty board to confirm she wanted to go into the Arena. She sat her bow down and gathered her hair up and tyed it back into a ponytail before tightening it. She looked at Raptor and debated whether to let him stay out or come in with her. She moved to the door and held it open. “Wait for me outside.” she spoke making him whine softly. “It’s okay, I’ll be okay.” She kissed his head and lightly patted him on the back. He walked out and she shut the door before picking her bow up and moving to the door.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IT LOOKS LIKE OUR NEXT COMBATANT HAS ARRIVED! DOES THE VAULT HUNTER HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO SURVIVE THE APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION ROUND?! I THINK WE ALL KNOW THE ANSWER: MAAAAAAAYBEEEE!”

That made Zena chuckle. “Maybe.” she repeated with a smile on her face. Mister Torgue always had a way of making her smile.

He wasn’t finished however. “THE RULES ARE SIMPLE: USE THE PROVIDED LOOT AND KILL EVERYBODY! THE LAST FIGHTER STANDING IS A BONA FIDE BADASS! GO TO THE CENTER OF THE ARENA WHEN YOU’RE READY TO START!” he informed or rather screamed.

Approaching the gate, she hit the button to open it and walked into the arena hearing the roar of the crowd and spun in a circle as she looked up at it. She remembered how popular Moxxi’s Underdome used to be, remembered how many people had been there and how deafening the crowd had been. She saw Dante up in one of the lower stands, waving at her with a smile on his face; so they’d meet up after she battled whatever Torgue had in the arena. She stepped into the center of the arena and removed a bow from her arrow, notching it as she heard Mister Torgue start screaming again. “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! IT’S THE MOMENT YOU’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR: THE HORDE OF HORRORS VERSUS THE VAULT HUNTER! FIGHT!”

She heard what sounded like air and quickly moved to her right as a Torgue Architect tried to get the jump on her but he was quickly met with an arrow in his neck. Another Torgue employee tried to get the jump on her but she quickly stabbed an arrow threw his eye and kicked the third back. Ripping the arrow free, she notched it and shot the third employee in the head with the already bloody arrow. She heard something about Torgue saying wave one was done but to be honest, she wasn’t paying much attention to the grown man screaming in her ear.

Four rounds of diving, jumping, ducking, and killing Torgue employees. She threw two grenades at a clustered group and ducked behind cover as the grenades went over, blood and various body parts flying everywhere. She flinched as an arm landed in front of her and thanked whatever god would listen to her that it didn’t land on her. She ran out and stopped as she saw a Goliath that had managed to power up at least twice.

“Oh you’re a big boy.” Zena squeaked as she slowly backed up. She was down to one arrow, there had been no time to recover all of her arrows over the last two rounds. He swung his left fist at her and she quickly ducked under him. She jumped back and was panting as she tried to figure out what to do. A Goliath who lost it’s helmet and wasn’t instantly put down was stronger, more feral, more dangerous.

Scanning the ground as she backed up, she saw what looked like a Torgue Assault Rifle and sprinted for it. He ran after her making her try and speed herself up, leaning down to grab the assault rifle and spun around. She pulled the trigger and watched as a bomb slammed into his head and blew it off, his body collapsing onto the ground. She released a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding and heard the crowd cheering louder. Dropping the gun, she walked over to the bodies with arrows and ripped them out, wrapping a cloth around the tips and sticking them into the quiver.

“DING DING DING!” shouted Mister Torgue’s voice. “THAT’S IT --- THE VAULT HUNTER WINS AND HAS NO LEAPED UP TO RANK NUMBER FIVE ON THE LEADERBOARDS!” He instantly went into what sounded like a guitar riff made with his mouth.

Running her hand across her face, she saw what looked like a weapon box in the middle of the arena. “Piston is proud of you.” spoke the man’s voice through her ECHO device. “I’ve arranged for the stagehands to deliver some guns to you -- take them. Piston thinks this will be the start of a beautiful relationship.”

As much as she loved her bow, she knew she needed a gun other than her pistol to survive out here. She approached the weapon case and hit the button, it hissed as it opened but it was empty. Her brows knit together in confusion as she stared at the empty box. “Uh…”

The sound of Piston laughing came through her ECHO. “I’m not going to share the Vault’s price with some no-name mercenary. I am the greatest fighter who ever lived. I will open the Vault myself. And you…” The sound of hissing made Zena leap back as she saw green gas rising from the grate. “...will get the hell out of my arena. That noise you’re hearing is the arena filling up with Harmstrong gas. I’ve turned the cameras off -- just breathe deep and pass out. Like a good little coward.”

By the time she yanked up her medical mask over her mouth and nose, she knew it was too late; that she had already gotten several lungs full of the gas cause her eyes grew heavy. She stumbled a little bit before her entire world went black.

A fire crackling and the scent of what smelled like burnt human flesh, yes she was aware as to what that smelled like but who didn’t on Pandora, was the first thing she heard and smelt upon waking up. She let her head roll to the side and her golden eyes widened as she noticed just how close to a furnace she was and not just a furnace, one filled with several bodies. She backed away quickly until her back collided with a wall.

“WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CAMERA FEED?!” shouted Torgue’s voice, the young woman flinching due to how bad her head was hurting right now. “WHY DO I HEAR GAS?! DID SOMEONE DRAG THE VAULT HUNTER AWAY?! I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS GOING ON!” Zena placed a hand to her temple and slowly rubbed at it, she was definitely not in the mood for this shit right now.

“Okay...okay…” she whispered as she forced herself to stand up. “Gotta find a way out of here.” She saw her bow laying nearby where she woke up and picked it up. “You wait until I find you mother fucker, I’m going to enjoy ripping your arms off.” 

It looked like she was in a boiler room or somewhere in the basement. She walked up a set of stairs and saw an open vent at the far wall, only problem was she’d have to leap from platform to platform to get there. She jumped to the first one, thankfully managing to get her leg foot on the edge and was able to push herself up. She ran at the next platform but nearly lost her balance when landing and went over the edge. She ran at the platform the door was at and messed up, she tripped over her own feet but managed to catch the platform with her right hand; dangling about ten feet from the ground. It wasn’t a huge drop but she didn’t want to go through that again.

Throwing her left hand up, she quickly pulled herself up onto the platform and and sighed. The vent was thankfully big enough for her and climbing into it was easy, granted she had to take her bow off and push it ahead of her as she crawled through when she reached a ladder, there was enough room to climb and put her weapon back onto her back. She reached another vent and looked out to see it lead outside of the arena, she tossed her bow out before squeezing her body through the open slot big enough for her, grimacing a little as a bar squished her breasts. She kicked her bow up and caught it with no problem as she looked around, she had a vague idea of where she was.

Before she could even try to figure anything else out Torgue cut her off. “WHAT THE HELL? LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE VAULT HUNTER HAS DISAPPEARED FROM THE ARENA! I DON’T KNOW -- WHERE THE F*CK DID SHE GO?!”

She was about to push down on her ECHO device and contact him when a voice made her growl. “Let me educate you, Torgue, The Vault Hunter ran. Away. They found out they’d have to fight me, Piston, to become the number one Badass on Pandora, and they ran away, like a little baby.”

Her arm throbbed as her right hand formed into a fist, her veins most likely glowing something awful by this point. “RAN AWAY?! THIS IS A TRAVESTY! I’VE GOT NO CHOICE -- AS THE HEAD OF THE TORGUE TOURNAMENT, I MUST OFFICIALLY DUB THE VAULT HUNTER...A COWARD!”

Gritting her teeth together, she closed her eyes and tried to count to ten like Zed and Zafina tried to get her too do. She spun around with a scream and slammed her fist into solid metal, a dent forming where her fist made contact. She heard the sound of a skag and looked to see Raptor running towards her with Dante at his side. “Zena!” he shouted as he nearly fell down the sandy incline but he made it too her, hugging her in his muscular arms.

“Your dad…”

Dante made a shush and smiled. “OKAY, IT’S STRAIGHT UP DAWG TIME!” shouted Torgue in her personal ECHO. “I KNOW YOU AIN’T ACTUALLY A COWARD BUT F*CK IF THAT TWIST ENDING DIDN’T MAKE FOR SOME GOOD TV!” She felt oddly relieved that Torgue knew better. “YOU’RE GOING TO NEED A NEW SPONSOR IF YOU WANNA STAY IN THE TOURNAMENT! GET TO THE BEATDOWN!”

Dante chuckled and rubbed at her head before tugging the medical mask down. “Raptor was on edge when he didn’t see you come out, thankfully I found him before a bandit did and thought he was feral.”

The 19 year old looked at him and chuckled. “Bitch, please. Raptor could’ve killed any Bandit that tried to kill him.”

Rubbing at her head, Zena approached Raptor and hugged his head making him release a sound that was similar to a purr. She moved around him and climbed onto his saddle, putting the bow on her back and caught a bottle that was tossed at her. Dante’s promised headache pills. “You going to the Beatdown?”

“Going to the Beatdown.” she repeated with a smile.

He nodded and backed up, putting his hands into her pockets. “Careful over there. Everyone’s crazy around these parts.”

Zena rolled her eyes and chuckled. “It’s Pandora, Dante. When isn’t there crazy people?”

Nudging Raptor’s side, the skag took off into a run. The creature racing up the small incline before moving onto the street and running as fast as he could, the young woman guiding him to where he needed to go. He took a corner quickly, his claws scraping against the concrete of the road before running up the hill towards the Beatdown, leaping over the cement barriers that stopped any and all modes of vehicles safe for motorcycles. He raced into the Beatdown before coming to a stop and roaring a Raider that turned towards them and before he could yell that they were here; Raptor’s four jawed mouth closed on his head. The creature shaking his head viciously before ripping the head off and spitting it out of his mouth.

“Good boy. We don’t eat strange objects.” she spoke patting his head making him roar softly.

“THE NUMBER FOUR RANKED BADASS LIVES OUT HERE!” The sound of Mister Torgue screaming through her ECHO made her scream in surprise and actually lose her balance on Raptor’s saddle. The young woman groaning as she slammed against the concrete. “HIS NAME’S PYRO PETE! AND HE --- HUGE COINCIDENCE! -- KIDNAPPED ONE OF THE FREELANCE SPONSORS AROUND HERE ABOUT A DAY AGO! YOU SHOULD GO KILL HIM AND MEAT HIM BUT NOT IN THAT ORDER!”

Zena glared at the sky and lifted her head from the ground, the back of her head throbbing where the concrete. As if she didn’t already have a headache. Pulling herself up from the ground, she opened the bottle of pills she was given and tapped two out. She stuffed the bottle into a saddle bag and unhooked her canteen, tossing both pills into her mouth and taking a mouth full of water to down it.

As she took another mouthful of water, she heard her ECHO start up again. “I tell ya, that Vault Hunter coward was like a child to me.” Her eyes rolled as she hooked her canteen back to her saddle. “I sponsored ’em. Brought ‘em up. And yet when it came down to the comedown, they ran away in fear. How the mighty have fallen.”

“I’m ripping his arms off.” she spoke making Raptor tilt his head. “Yeah, I’m gonna rip his fucking arms off.”

Torgue didn’t waste a minute before coming through. “EVEN WITH THE WHOLE “COWARD” THING, YOU’RE STILL THE NUMBER FIVE BADASS ON THE TORGUE LEADERBOARD, AND PISTON’S NUMBER ONE! YOU JUST GOTTA KILL YOUR WAY UP THE LIST, AND THEN YOU’LL BE ABLE TO WHIP OUT YOUR HEROISM AND SLAP PISTON IN THE FACE WITH IT!”

Shaking her head, Zena took her bow off. “I’m gonna slap him in the face with his own damn arms after I rip them off.” she confirmed, reaching behind her to pull an arrow free of her quiver. She still needed to sit down and properly clean these but they’d work fine until then.

Making her way through the beatdown, she was killing bandits coming at her. She quickly ducked under an axe and impaled the guy in the eye with an arrow that she hadn’t fired yet before quickly taking one of the explosive arrows she made moving through the beat down and destroyed a turret that turned its attention on her. “It’s the COWARD! Oooohh, I’m burning up inside! You want a sponsor, yes? I’ve got a warm one. But you must dance. First, start some trouble here in the Beatdown, and then I will give her too you! Get to the battle board. Go now, BEFORE THE FLAME RISES!” shouted Pyro Pete.

Shooting another bandit in the knee with one arrow and quickly stabbing him in the throat with another, Zena heard Mr. Torgue. “HIS GIMMICK IS THAT HE REALLY LIKES FIRE!”

No shit, his name was Pyro Pete. Zena and Raptor made their way through the Beatdown, killing anyone that tried to stop them and even blowing up a few motorcycles. They made their way to Pyro Pete’s Bar, the young woman stepping in with Raptor following; she had to open both doors for him to get inside otherwise he wouldn’t have to wait outside and he laid down in the first room. She ignored the battleboard, kicked open a closed and locked door and made her way to a drop. She could hear Torgue talking about Pyro Pete planning to try and kill her anyways but she didn’t care. She had turned the ECHO down, he was giving her a headache.

Without hesitation, she dropped down and landed on her feet to see Pyro Pete standing there in the middle of the large circular room. “You came for my sponsor?!” he shouted as he adjusted this flamethrowers on his arms.

“Uh...yeah. It’s why I’m here?” she huffed out as she took out an arrow.

“Fine!” he pulled a lever and a cage came out of one of the large tunnels.

A color of purple made her inhale sharply as the cage was lowered just enough for the sponsor to watch without being hurt. “Moxxi.” she whispered seeing the woman.

The brunette grabbed the bars and looked down. “Zena! Zena run!” she shouted.

“No, no, no.” Zena whispered when something solid struck her and she fell down with a loud gasp. Her bow clattering as it fell from her hands, she went to grab it when a foot kicked her hard in the ribs and sent her into the nearest wall.

“FIGHT BACK!” screamed Torgue’s voice through her ECHO device.

Zena shook her head and spit blood out of her mouth, she had all of her teeth so she must’ve bitten her tongue or lip when struck. She couldn’t fight back hand to hand, there was no way she’d let Moxxi know she was super strong. Her golden eyes looked towards her fallen bow and arrow as she stood up, only for her body to sway and she fell down onto one knee. She could hear Moxxi shouting for her to run but she knew she couldn’t do that, she was committed to this.

“Shut up.” she whispered as she heard Moxxi still screaming at her. “SHUT UP MOXXI!”

The brunette and even Pyro Pete seemed shocked. Zena took that moment to run for her bow, Pete saw her and quickly fired his flame thrower. The 19 year old quickly scrambling out of the way to keep herself from getting lit on fire, he wasn’t letting her get to her bow. It was her only weapon on her, her spare weapon was stashed on Raptor. “Let me fry you bitch!” he shouted as she quickly moved out of the way, trying to go over every possible outcome in this situation; every situation ended with her fighting with her fists. For years, she swore she’d never let Moxxi see her strength unless Moxxi loved her for her. No, there had to be another way.

He cut off her escape with his right flamethrower and she backed up quickly. “Fuck. FUCK!” she shouted before running at him, she dodged his right arm and threw herself down onto the ground to slide under the stream of fire from his left flamethrower, the heat of it almost making her sweat instantly from feeling it.

She flipped up and slammed her foot into his back. She threw him off balance enough for her to try and go for her bow but she stopped as she saw it laying on the ground, fried to a crisp. “MY BOW!” she shrieked.

Pyro Pete began laughing as she grabbed at the ruined weapon, it was one of her favorites. “Come on coward! How are you gonna fight me now?! Just let me kill you!”

Her hands tightened around the bow and she snapped it in half, if Moxxi saw it then she’d probably chalk it up to being so weakened by the fire. “RAPTOR!” she roared.

A roar came from up above and Pyro Pete looked as an armored skag jumped down. “What the…” Zena ran at him and struck the back of his head with a broken half of the bow that managed to throw him off balance and disorient him long enough for her to run at her skag. She slid beside him and quickly opened a saddle bag to dig around in it, she pulled out Rubi and started at it. Moxxi had given it to her for helping with, instead of giving Mordecai the alcohol she obtained, she gave it to the bar owner.

To be honest, Rubi was one of Zena’s most prized possessions. “Alright. Lets go fucker!” she spat out as he ran at her.

The human and skag quickly took different ways, the man running after Zena. Raptor spun around, his claws digging into the metal floor as he forced himself to stop and he ran at Pyro Pete, leaping at him. His left claws sliced across his shoulder and made him scream, the skag ran right by him and Zena grabbed the saddle as he ran by. “Come here and let me fry you!” shouted the man, he sounded like he was getting pissed.

Zena let go of Raptor once the creature got her a bit away from the fire wielding jackass. She twirled Rubi in her hand and looked up at Moxxi, the woman was on her knees as if getting onto the floor of the cage would get her closer to the fight. She dodged the man’s right fist in time and fired a shot, he screamed as the bullet went through his arm right below his elbow. She quickly withdrew her knife and stabbed him near his pelvis and she was kicked backwards, the young woman falling down. He threw out his left arm as his flame thrower started up, Raptor closed his four jawed mouth around his arm and shook viciously.

“Let go! You don’t know where that’s been!” she shouted, making him instantly release the man and Zena ran over at him as he forced himself back onto his feet. He stopped as he heard a soft tap noise and saw the barrel of Rubi pressed to his visor. “Later bitch.” She pulled the trigger and his head snapped back as she shot him in the head.

Running over to the lever Pete had been missing with, she hit a button on the wall and the cage began to lower. Walking over, Moxxi stood straight up and looked her over. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Fine. I mean...I’m pissed my bow is broken. I didn’t bring any others with me.” she sighed as she looked at the door and clicked her tongue.

Raptor grabbed at one of the bars with his mouth and pulled until it broke off. “I’m so sorry Sugar.” whispered the purple clad woman.

“Whatever. Let’s get you out of here.”

Zena lifted Moxxi up onto Raptor before climbing up in front of her, arms wrapping around her waist as Zena held onto her skag’s saddle tight enough. The skag ran at where they had dropped down and leaped, his claws digging into the wall as he quickly climbed the wall before pulling them into the corridor they had been in. Zena got down only to let Raptor out of the building before getting back up and letting Moxxi wrap her arms around her waist again. They went to the Badass Crater bar, apparently Moxxi was trying to open up a bar location there and had been here since early this morning before she was captured. Raptor was thankfully allowed, the creature settling by the door just after the stairs as Zena threw her broken bow against the table.

“Sugar…” tried Moxxi.

“I’m gonna take a nap.” she snapped out making the brunette actually recoil a little bit.

The white haired woman laid down on the booth as Raptor moved closer and positioned himself near the entrance of the booth as Zena crossed her arms over her chest and closed her eyes to get some sleep. The brunette looked at the broken bow parts and knew that Torgue had the bow made, that it was her favorite bow ever cause...well Torgue’s son was her best friend.

She walked around the bar and called Dante on her ECHO device. “Uh...hello?” he asked.

“Dante, this is Moxxi.” the brunette spoke. “How hard would it be to get Zena another bow?”

Dante tssked on the other end. “Not hard, I have a spare but it needs to be painted.”

“Alright, do me a favor sugar.” Dante made a noise of question. “Make a Mad Moxxi bow and I'll pay you five hundred dollars.” She heard him chuckle on the other end, her right brow raising in question. “What’s so funny?”

He made a noise, probably shaking his head. “No, nothing. It’s just...Zena would really love a Mad Moxxi bow. I can get it there in an hour and a half.”

“Perfect.”

With that, they both hung up and Moxxi looked over towards where the sleeping woman and creature were. Moxxi silently prayed that Zena would stay asleep long enough for Dante to finish up her bow and get it to the bar. She spent the next twenty minutes cleaning her bar and cleaning all of the glasses just in case, she didn’t want to risk any dirty glasses. She saw movement out of the corner of her eyes, she looked up and saw Zena rolling over and her legs curl up closer to herself. She walked over to Zena and looked down at her to see she didn’t even have a pillow.

Tssking, the brunette looked around trying to figure out what to give her for a pillow. She went up the small set of steps and opened the closet she knew that was there, she found a folded up blanket and a small square pillow, why was it there? She had no idea. She moved back over to Zena and carefully lifted her head to rest it on the pillow, the young woman exhaling softly as she turned her face into the pillow. Shaking the blanket out, she draped it over Zena’s body and moved hair out of her face. 

She heard Zena groan softly and roll onto her stomach a bit as her arm hung off the seat. “You’re tired aren’t you?” she whispered watching the 19 year old. “You shouldn’t be doing this sort of stuff.”

“She’s able to take care of herself you know.” spoke the voice of Sir Hammerlock as he walked down the steps.

“Hello Hammerlock.” she spoke with a smile.

The gentleman nodded and looked at the sleeping woman. “Zena is able to defend herself. You keep telling her she cannot fight, that she shouldn’t be a Vault Hunter cause she doesn’t have what it takes.”

“She...”

Hammerlock held up his robot hand in a means to politely shush Moxxi. “This girl fought Handsome Jack, granted she was with the other Vault Hunters but she fought him. Because of her help, he’s gone.”

Moxxi looked at Zena as she soaked in his words, Hammerlock practically lived in the bar when back at Sanctuary. Hee hung out there and often saw Moxxi’s worried expression when Zena would come and go. He came to the conclusion that Moxxi most likely worried cause aside from Gaige, who was 18, Zena was one of the youngest Vault Dwellers; she had known Zena since the girl was 14 years old. Was it because Moxxi knew her longer than any of the others that she worried for Zena’s safety? “She’s just a girl.” she whispered.

“Gaige is a year younger and you don’t tell her not to go out.” he informed. The brunette rubbed her hands together before wringing them a bit. She knew he was right, Gaige was never told what Zena was. Zena was a year older, was born and raised on Pandora, she knew the planet better than the Mechanist did. “How much more do you think Zena will take before she snaps and no longer wants anything to do with you? You’re constantly doubting her, you’re constantly chastising her. She comes back to Sanctuary after being attacked by a rakk, a wound that left that lovely scar, and you chastised her. Moxxi, you are not her mother.”

Pale blue eyes looked at the sleeping white haired teen and she inhaled deeply as she tried to think of a retort. The looks of annoyance that crossed Zena’s face whenever Moxxi said something she didn’t liked, flashed in front of her eyes. “Right. I’ll keep that in mind.” she spoke making Hammerlock nod and move over to where he decided to hang out. There was probably some creature in the area he’d ask Zena to hunt, she loved hunting for him and Moxxi hated seeing Zena go.

Dante arrived right about the time he said he would as Moxxi was giving a patron his beer. He was wearing a Torgue shirt and black jeans, he was always wearing something Torgue related. He carefully and quietly sat the container on the table where Zena was sleeping, he had to nudge Raptor aside a bit but the skag knew him and listened. Moxxi walked over as he unlocked it before lifting the top open.

Inside was a bow, similar to the compound bow she had been using before Pyro Pete destroyed it. However it was purple with white letters saying Moxxi with a pink heart above the I. Dante had even done a pinup of Moxxi on both sides of the bow. Beside it was a new quiver, she hadn’t asked for that. “I already did this.” he spoke pointing at the quiver. It had what looked like Moxxi sitting on a missile with her megaphone that she used to use back when she had her Underdome. She missed that megaphone.

“Dante?” groaned out a voice making the two look to see Zena roll onto her back as she rubbed at her eyes.

“Moxxi here commissioned me for a weapon.” he spoke.

The 19 year old just laid on her back as she hummed. “It's for you.” added Moxxi. Zena sat up, almost falling back down but managing to catch herself with the table. “I noticed you were using Rubi and I thought, since your bow was destroyed that Dante could make you a new one but...styled similar to Rubi.” That made the young woman knit her brows together as Dante turned the case and she saw the bow.

The woman shifted and tucked one leg under her to prop herself up a bit further as she slid her hands across the new weapon. Anything Moxxi related, Zena loved. She had bought the Miss Moxxi’s Bad Touch off Salvador like a week ago and was currently trying to get a hold of Moxxi’s Good Touch gun. She clicked her tongue and Raptor moved out of the way as she tossed the blanket off her to get off the booth. She grabbed the bow and lifted it out of the case, she grabbed at the string and drew it back; it felt a bit stiff but all knew bows did.

Looking at Moxxi, she smiled softly. “Thank you Moxxi.”

“You rested up? Cause I need your help Sugar.” Zena tilted her head curiously. “I did a few promo interviews to talk you up before your big fight with Piston but it sounds like they went missing. Go find ‘em.”

“Uh...yeah. Put the locations on my Echo.” nodded Zena as she put the bow onto her back and replaced her old quiver with her knew one, strapping the second strap around her thigh so the quiver itself wasn’t moving around all over the place.

She gathered her hair up into her hands and tired her white hair back into a ponytail before quickly braiding it into a loose braid. “Gee -- I wonder who stole and hid the interview tapes.” spoke Piston’s voice, Zena’s teeth grit together at the sound of it. “Oh wait, I just remembered -- me, baby. Piston doesn’t want any competition on the airwaves, you dig?”

Rolling her eyes, Zena clicked her tongue and Raptor moved after her. The young girl climbing onto his back once they were outside in the humid weather...she preferred it inside the bar, there was air conditioning. Looking at her ECHO device’s map, she decided the best one to grab first was off somewhere to the right of them. She had Raptor head in that direction and take off running. She was glad she chose to wear the outfit Tina had either designed or had designed cause if she wore her usual black and red outfit, she’d be hot as fuck in the sun at the moment...well she already was but not as much as she would’ve been.

The area for the first interview was what looked like a little home and a garage. Raptor came to a stop and she looked down at the map to follow where the marker was. She found the ECHO device sitting on the wall, hung up by a single nail. Taking it down, she hit the play button as she walked back to Raptor.

“Moxxi, the fans say your Vault Hunter is a coward.” Whoa, wait...was that Mr. Torgue talking at a normal level. “How do you respond to that?”

“I don’t, sugar.” spoke Moxxi’s recorded voice as she climbed up onto Raptor and stared down at the ECHO. “You just watch my Vault Hunter in the ring -- you watch the way she turns die hard badasses into tear-soaked creampuffs and you tell me she’s a coward. You wanna know who the real coward is? A little scaredy cat named Piston. He’s a cheat, and a lair, and he better start being scared, because my Vault Hunter -- oh, boy, she’s comin’ for ya.”

Wait...what? Moxxi was praising her? “You sound pretty confident.” stated Torgue’s pre-recorded voice.

“Bet on it, kids -- by the end of this tournament, the Vault Hunter will spill Piston’s blood.”

Smiling, Zena put the ECHO into her stachel before steering Raptor to head towards one just north of their position. She did have to stop him as she saw motorcycles on the track, she knew they’d try to shoot at them once seen. Might as well try out the bow and what better way then on her skag? She fished out an explosive arrow tip and pulled an arrow out, she unscrewed the current tip and replaced it with the explosive one. She notched the arrow and drew it back as she extended the index finger on her left hand and used it to aim at the motorcycle as it slowly drove down the road.

Releasing the arrow, it was sent flying towards the motorcycle. Usually she’d aim for a headshot but she’d work on that after doing Moxxi’s little errand here. The tip of the arrow struck the sidecar and a loud explosion happened as the arrow went off. She held her arms up above her head and laughed. It was a little off to the right but the more she practiced with the bow, the better she’d get with it. A new bow always took her at least a day or two to adjust to it.

The next interview recording was in an area with a lot of Torgue employees armed with guns, why exactly did Torgue arm his employees to fight the contestants? Using her bow would take too long, so she pulled out Rubi and shot at any employee that tried to shoot her or her Skag. The second interview was hidden behind one of the houses, that wasn’t exactly a good hiding spot. She grabbed it as Raptor ran by but didn’t hit play since she couldn’t kill all the enemies in this area and made Raptor retreat. He leaped over the cement barriers and ran up a hill, the employees that had shot at her upon sight had stopped chasing her and went back to minding their own business.

She pressed the play button on the ECHO after looking around real quick to make sure there were no other enemies nearby. “The odds aren’t in your Vault Hunter’s favor, Moxxi -- what makes you think she’ll survive?”

Alright, here we go. This must be where Moxxi said something about her not being able to take care of herself or that she didn’t have what it took to do this sort of job. “You ever heard of a guy named Captain Flynt?”

“The King of the Rippers?”

“He was -- until he met the Vault Hunter..” Killing Flynt wasn’t sure Zena, she had been there with the others on the train when Jack derailed it. She had been there with them and they all had a hand in killing Flynt. “Sugar, my Vault Hunter has laughed at Handsome Jack, defeated the Bloodshots, killed Pyro Pete, and single handedly defeated more of Pandora’s horrors than anyone else in this tournament put together.” spoke Moxxi’s voice. “If anyone has a chance of surviving this tournament -- hell, of surviving life on this planet -- it’s her.”

Zena opened her mouth to say something before narrowing her eyes at the ECHO as the interview stopped. What was Moxxi saying? Why wasn’t she saying her usual stuff? Shaking her head, she put the second device into her satchel and steered Raptor towards the third.

The third was easy to get too, it was at the arena and sitting on a box out in the open. Okay what kind of hiding spots was Piston using? It was almost like he wanted her to find these. She grabbed the third and stared at it for a moment, wondering if she should continue listening to these but Moxxi didn’t say she couldn’t.

Her right thumb hit the play button. “Moxxi, is there anything you’d like to say to the people listening?” asked Torgue, his calm voice was scaring Zena a little bit.

A soft chuckle, a chuckle that Zena loved, came from the device. “You better believe it. I’ve got a message to the other gladiators. Just one teeny, tiny message. Motor Mamma, Flyboy, Piston -- if you have any desire to survive this tournament, you’ll listen to my message very carefully.”

“And that message is?” inquired Torgue.

“Run.” finished the older woman.

Run? Did Moxxi really believe Zena had it in her to defeat Motor Mamma, Flyboy, and Piston? The third device went into her satchels with the other three and she steered Raptor towards the fourth, which was a little ways north of where she was but not too far and...hidden beside a washing machine? She leaned down from the saddle and grabbed the fourth ECHO.

Zena moved some loose hair from her face. “He cannot hide shit. Like these are almost all out in the open.” she huffed.

Hitting play, she waited and listened. “Moxxi, the Torgue fight fans wanna know --”

“Moxxi! MOXXI! I wanna be on the show.” Tina’s voice startled Zena, she actually almost threw the device but kept a good hold on it. She wasn’t expecting that.

“Tina -- DOWN, Tina.”

The 19 year old laughed at the sound of Moxxi trying to stop Tina. “I wanna be on the show. I’ma be the star of the show.” the 14 year old stated.

“Moxxi, who the hell is that?” Torgue asked.

“Just a trainer I hired hired. Don’t worry about her --”

“IT’S THE TINA SHOW, STARRING ME TINY TINA! TONIGHT OUR SPECIAL GUEST IS MISTER TORGUE. MISTER TORGUE TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOURSELF.” Zena laughed harder as Tina did a show theme and a show host voice as she spoke.

“Well, Tina, I’m forty-three, I’m the founder of the Torgue corporation, I got a handsome boy for a son --”

“Don’t encourage her.” sighed Moxxi’s voice.

She loved when Moxxi sounded like that. She had no idea why. “THAT’S THE END OF MY SHOW. I’D LIKE TO THANK MISTER TORGUE AND MY MUSICAL GUEST KYLE IN MODERATION. GOODNIGHT EVERYONE!”

“So did actually you wanna ask me that question or…”

“TINA SAID ‘GOODNIGHT’, MOXXI! SHOW’S OVER!” screamed Torgue.

“Motherf*ucker!” Moxxi cursed and Zena blinked in surprise. Sure the curse had been bleeped but she could obviously tell what Moxxi was trying to say.

Putting the fourth device into her satchel, she sighed and looked towards the bar. “I gotta have a word with Tina about consideration.” Raptor tilted his head. “She probably won’t understand it or actually do it but I need to have a talk with her.”

The last one was a little north-west of her position and she was really grateful she stayed on Raptor. There was a bunch of platforms he had to jump, that was actually no issue for him at all, and he could make long jumps where she would’ve most likely fallen in certain spots. He ran up a set of stairs at a house and she dropped down from him as she realized he wouldn’t fit. It was sitting just outside the back door and she grabbed it while hitting the play button.

Mister Torgue, like always, was the first one to speak. “So Moxxi, what are you and the Vault Hunter gonna do if ya’ll open the vault?”

Moxxi hummed for a moment, most likely thinking of the answer. “Personally, I plan on getting back into the limelight. Open a new Underdome, hear the crowd screaming my name again...it’ll be nice.”

“What about the vault hunter?”

“She’ll probably keep grabbing loot and killing stuff. You know, the usual.”

That was it, that was the end of the last tape. She looked at Raptor with a raised brow and rubbed at the back of her neck. “She said nice stuff about me.” Raptor let out a small whine of confusion. “Moxxi never says nice stuff about me, boy. It’s always; don’t do that you’ll get her, see you got hurt so maybe next time you’ll listen to me, you don’t have what it takes to be a Vault Hunter.” She placed the last device into her satchel, she was definitely feeling the weight different now. “But in these, she praises my talents, advises the others to run and...actually believes I might win?”

The skag just stared at his human before nudging her with his head. She knew he couldn’t talk but a nudge was all she needed, it was his way of comforting her when she was upset, sad, or angry. She rubbed at his head before climbing onto his satchel and turning him around to run back to the bar. “You found all the interviews?” asked Moxxi over Zena’s ECHO. “Gorgeous. Just bring ‘em back to me and I’ll make sure they’re broadcast all over the crater.” Without saying a word, she just had Raptor head towards the bar. She wasn’t entirely sure how to feel, Moxxi had said a lot of good things about her. A part of her was happy but another part of her wanted to cry.

Moxxi looked up as the doors opened and she saw Raptor come in first, laying down by the booth Zena had previously been napping on earlier. The 19 year old lifted the devices out of her bag and sat them on the bar. “Here.” was all the white haired woman said.

“Now that you’ve brought these interviews back, they should play over the Crater loudspeakers every once in awhile.” Zena didn’t respond. “Sugar?”

“You said nice things about me…” she inhaled deeply and swallowed as her golden eyes started to look glossy. “You never say nice things about me.”

Sighing, Moxxi looked at the devices. “I realized I was wrong.” she spoke softly. “You’re nineteen, you’re an adult. I just...worry.” The white haired, golden eyed woman said nothing as she looked at the brunette. “When did we meet?”

“Five years ago.”

Moxxi hummed and smiled. “You broke into my Underdome. Killed dozens of the psychos I hired to fight the Vault Hunters. I carried you home over my shoulder and expected your father to lecture you but all Zed did was ask the exact number of how many you killed; sixty-two by the way, and he high fived you. Do you have any idea how entirely awkward it was for me trying to make commentary for a fourteen year old?! Let alone a fourteen year old I didn’t know?!” A loud and genuine laugh escaped the young woman. “The others I could flirt with, say inappropriate things but you show up and it’s like...uh, what do I do here?”

Pursing her lips in thought, she looked at Moxxi. “What does this…”

“I’ve known you longer. I care more about your well-being than the others.” interrupted the purple clad woman. “You’re my friend.” Why did it look like Zena had been struck when she said that, she chose to ignore it. “You get along with my kids, even my sweet dumb boy. You’re an excellent hunter and a wonderful young woman. It just took me a while to see that.”

She saw the young woman’s eyes look down at the ECHO devices before looking back up at her. “Am I getting paid for this or…” she asked, to be honest; she had no idea where to even go with that statement. Moxxi chuckled and pulled out a couple hundreds before passing it too her. Their fingers brushing as Zena took the money and their eyes locked with one another as Moxxi pulled her hand back as if she had been burned.

Her fingers were tingling from Moxxi’s touched. “Just promise me you’ll be careful out there, Sugar.”

“I promise.” Zena responded, a small smile on her face.

Turning around she saw the door open and Maya walk through with Salvador behind her. “Zena!” laughed the shorter man.

She looked happy, confused as to why they were there but happy. “I called you some help, now before you say anything, I know you can handle yourself.” spoke Moxxi. “I just wanted you to have some back up. Maya and Salvador were the only ones available. Your mother was busy too apparently.”

The white haired woman pursed her lips before smiling softly, she high fived both the Siren and Gunzerker. They needed to go beat Motor Mama and to be honest, Zena was glad she had some friends to do it with. They went out to the Bandit Technical, Salvador getting in the back as Maya got into the mounted gun, they apparently managed to get the power up and running for the gate leading into Motor Mama’s compound before coming to get Zena, okay so that saved her a lot of time.

Zena was driving to where Motor Mama was located and upon nearing the gate, Moxxi came over on the ECHO. “Be careful -- Motor Mama loves vehicles. That’s what attracted her to me in the first place. Oh, did I mention we dated for a while?” Why did the mention of Moxxi saying she dated a woman before make Zena all giddy inside? “Had to break it off once she devoured one of my other girlfriends alive. Nobody eats my ladyfriends but me --- oh god. To far. That was in bad taste.” Moxxi made a noise that sounded like she was about to throw up. “Vomited in my mouth a little bit. Sorry, the, uh -- the innuendo talk is a defense mechanism.”

“Mox.” She heard a hum on the other end. “Never change.” was all Zena said. A soft chuckle was heard but Moxxi didn’t say a word.

Parking in front of the raceway gate, the three climbed out and Zena took her Moxxi inspired bow before pulling out an arrow and notching it, she had Maya and Salvador with her; both had guns. They went through the gate and started running down the path to get to the other gate when Motor Mama’s people started attacking them, the three killing everyone in their path. Zena used an explosive tip to shoot three of them, the explosion causing bits of them to fly all over the place as Salvador shouted something in Spanish and opened fire with two guns. They made it to the entrance of where Motor Mama was and Zena ran her arm across her face, smearing blood as she approached Marcus’ ammo vending machine.

Salvador was looking for a better shield in Zed’s machine as Maya was reloading her guns, she had enough ammo. She shook her hair, making loose strands of white hair move away from her face. She found what she needed and inserted the money before hitting the button; a bundle of incendiary arrows falling out. She easily broke the plastic tie holding them together and put them into her quiver, the feathers were colored accordingly; red feathers for incendiary, green feathers for corrosive, blue feathers for shock, orange feathers for explosive, and purple feathers for slag. Looking in her quiver, she only had ten red feathers (cause she just bought the arrows) and two blue, with all the rest being white feathers (normal arrows).

“Ready?” asked Salvador walking up.

“Nope.” was all Zena said as she walked up to the entrance and twirled an arrow before stepping in, the two adults following her without questioning.

The sound of a crane lowering made them look up to see a rather large woman being lowered. “I’m so glad you could make it!” said Motor Mama’s sickeningly sweet voice. “I’m going to kill you and make sandwiches out of your corpse!”

Zena paled a little bit at the threat, sure she heard worse but still terrifying. The woman unclipped herself and landed on a motorcycle. “IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN!” shouted Torgue’s voice. “MOTOR MAMA VERSUS THE VAULT HUNTER! FIGHT!!”

She at first wondered why Torgue didn’t say Vault Hunters but to be honest, she was the one fighting for the crater’s number one badass; not the three of them. “Zena move!” shouted Maya’s voice making the 19 year old throw herself out of the way as a motorcycle went right where her body had been standing.

“AND THE FIGHT BEGINS! FOR COLOR COMMENTARY, I’M NOW JOINED VIA ECHO BY THE VAULT HUNTER’S MANGER, MOXXI!” shouted Torgue in his typical fashion.

Oh fucking great. “Pleasure to be here, Torgue.” spoke the woman’s voice as Zena fired an incendiary arrow at the motorcycle but instead it struck another motorcycle that got in the way, the driver screaming as he was lit on fire.

Zena dodged another motorcycle and nearly fell over, sort of wishing she brought Raptor but instead left him with Moxxi. “MOTOR MAMA IS ONE OF THE DEADLIEST GLADIATORS THIS PLANET HAS EVER SEEN, MOXXI! WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOUR VAULT HUNTER HAS A CHANCE?!”

The white haired woman ran towards the motorcycle as the woman spun it around, she tried to grab hold of it and climb on it but the woman slammed on the gas. Zena slid and grabbed one of her two shock arrows, notching it and firing quickly. Another dumb motorcyclist got in her way, he screamed in pain as electricy wracked through his body. “Simple, Torgue. Motor Mama might have a chip on her shoulder and a belly full of baby flesh, but my Vault Hunter survived a run-in with Handsome Jack himself.”

Right now was not the appropriate time to get butterflies in her stomach by hearing Moxxi refer to Zena as her Vault Hunter! “HOLY SH*TSOCKS, THAT’S IMPRESSIVE! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN THIS IS GONNA BE ONE HELL OF A MATCH!”

She tried to fire her last shock arrow but stopped as she saw there was no way she’d be able to shoot Motor Mama at that speed without mission. She only had Rubi and that wouldn’t do for long ranged attacks. “Fuck. Fuck!” She put her bow on her back and walked into the middle of the area. “COME AT ME!” she smacked her chest as she looked at Motor Mama. Her bike was revved in a threatening manner. “HIT ME!”

Motor Mama hit the gas and the bike raced at Zena as the two other Vault Hunters raced at her, hoping to get her out of the way. She quickly moved to the right, spinning around as the motorcycle raced by her and she grabbed the back of the motorcycle. She screamed as she dug her feet into the sand, she was pulled forward by a few feet but ultimately she was more powerful. The motorcycle slowing down until all Motor Mama could do was rev it, she turned and saw Zena standing there. She revved the bike enough that it kicked sand up into her face, she shouted and released the vehicle as sand went into her eyes. She quickly withdrew her arrow and pulled her bow off, notching and firing. It struck the back tire of the motorcycle and Motor Mama had to lay it down or she’d be thrown off.

She cracked her eye open and saw she had actually hit the motorcycle and shook her head as her eyes burned. She pulled her water bottle out of her bag, opened it and poured it onto her face and into her eyes to force it open. She growled as water went down her face, soaking her top as she ran towards the woman who was not shooting at her. She grabbed an arrow and shouted in pain as a bullet nicked her hand, the arrow following to the ground. She heard a shout and looked to see a purple gun thrown towards her, she caught it with her left hand and fired. 

Due to her left hand being her non-dominant hand, the bullets sprayed everywhere and her stability wasn’t great but she watched as multiple bullets struck Motor Mama in the chest and stomach, one actually striking her in the neck. The woman let out a gargled noise before falling to the ground.

“THE VAULT HUNTER WINS!” shouted Torgue’s voice.

“What’d I tell ya?!” asked Moxxi’s voice, there was a sense of pride behind it.

Lowering the gun, she looked at her bleeding right hand. The bullet had gotten the right side of her hand and blood was dripping off her pinky finger. Another scar to add to that hand, turning her hand so her palm was facing upwards, she saw that the cut didn’t even go near the middle of her palm where her other scar curved downwards towards her wrist. “LADIES AND GENTS, THE VAULT HUNTER IS NOW THE NUMBER THREE BADDASS ON PANDORA! THIS IS ONE NUMBER HIGHER THAN FOUR!”

A chuckle escaped her as she tilted her head back. “It is indeed Torgue, it is indeed.”

“Well uh...well said.” said Moxxi’s voice, unsure as to respond to that.

“YOUR KIND WORDS ARE APPRECIATED!”

That caused the three of them to bust out laughing. Torgue really was a cinnamon roll as Dante would put it. “Hey Sugar.” spoke the brunette’s voice. “Come on back when you’re done over there.”

She shook her hand slightly and nodded, watching her blood fall and darken the sand. That was when she felt a vibration in her left hand and looked down before gasping loud and turning to the two other Vault Hunters. “Who got this?!”

“I did.” answered Maya.

“I will buy it off of you!” quickly spoke Zena.

It was Moxxi’s Good Touch gun. Salvador busted out laughing as he looked at Maya. “She is good for it! She bought the bad touch one off me a week ago!”

The bluenette seemed to be debating. “Please!” begged Zena. “I have Rubi, Miss Moxxi’s Bad Touch and my bow, which has no name yet, please let me buy Miss Moxxi’s Good Touch off you!”

After a moment, the Siren chuckled and nodded. “Alright, alright. You got me. How much will you give me for it?” she inquired.

“Well I gave Sal about a couple hundred.” she responded. “I can give you around the same or more.”

“Just give me five hundred.” spoke Maya making Zena hold the gun between her arm and side as she used her good hand to go into her satchel, pulling out her roll of money, she carefully counted out five hundred and held it out for Maya to pull free since she only had one good hand. The Siren grabbed the bills and carefully tugged them out so she didn’t accidentally pull more out. She put the money away and pulled her first aid kit out while holding it out to the Siren.

The woman took a moment to put her money away before taking the kit and pulling out gauze, folding it in half and pressing it firmly against the bleeding wound before wrapping the bandages around it to hold it tight. Maya tied the ends off and Zena flexed her fingers slightly before putting her stuff away. “Can someone else drive? I don’t think I can until I get this taken care off, I have no Insta-Healths on me.”

Salvador drove as the two women rode in the back and to be honest, Zena kinda liked it. She drove herself or the other Vault Hunters around everywhere. Piston made a point to radio her over the ECHO and tease her about not having pecs, she didn’t need pecs when she had tits. She rested her head against the side of the back as she stared out at the scenery, shifting her bow and new gun so they were slightly under her right thigh and secure so they didn’t fall out of the truck. Salvador parked in front of the bar and Maya got out first before Zena, the young woman grabbing her bow and newly acquired gun. She stopped at the door and looked down at her hand, she had used her strength, Moxxi had seen it, and now she had to face the woman she adored about it.

With a sigh, she followed Maya and Salvador into the bar. The two older Vault Hunters went to a booth as they asked Moxxi for some pizza and booze. The young woman approached the vending machine her dad had around Pandora and hovered her left hand over the control panel, a light admitting from it and scanning her hand. She watched as the words ‘ _Welcome Zena_ ’ appeared and she pushed the Insta-Health button, the syringe dropping down and she crouched to grab it. She walked over to the booth Raptor was sitting by, patting his head carefully with her injured hand as she moved to sit down.

She fished out her first aid kit, setting the stuff down as she sighed. Moxxi gave the two older Vault Hunters their booze and food before going to set a box of pizza down for Zena but stopping as she watched her unwrap the bandage. She pushed the box towards the wall, stepped around Raptor, and sat across from Zena. Her hands gently took Zena’s and finished unwrapping the bandages, the 19 year old keeping quiet as she watched.

“Zena! ZENA!” shrieked a very excited voice. She knit her brows together and looked to see Tiny Tina running towards her, throwing her arms around the 19 year old’s neck. She wrapped an arm around the small teen’s waist and hugged her in return.

“Hey Tina…”

“Shawty, I was watchin’ you fight Motor Mama, and I just wanna say: damn girl. You. Is. A pimp. I just...MM!” she sounded way too excited but it made Zena happy. “And you wore my outfit! You’re becoming the number one badass in MY outfit!”

Zena was laughing as she kissed the little girl’s head and hugged her. “I am.” she chuckled.

Maya leaned around and saw Moxxi getting the stuff together to clean and take care of Zena’s wound. “Hey Tina, want some pizza?” the blonde perked up and looked curiously. “I know it’s not crumpets but…”

“PIZZA!” shouted Tina leaping into Maya’s lap to climb over beside her.

Moxxi turned Zena’s hand so her palm was facing upwards and she grabbed the rubbing alcohol and a piece of gauze, wetting it and gently dabbing it over the bleeding wound. It stung but it wasn’t a feeling she was unused too. Burning meant it was killing the germs, she watched as Moxxi’s pink finger rubbed against the curved scar on her palm but she might have imagined it cause one second it was there, the next it was gone as Moxxi grabbed the Insta-Health. She uncapped the needle and took a fresh piece of gauze, soaked in rubbing alcohol, which she rubbed at the spot between Zena’s thumb and index finger before pushing the needle into her. She moved her thumb to the plunger and injected her with the medicine.

“Mox…”

“I don’t know if it needs stitches.” Zena tilted her hand a bit to look at the wound, it was still bleeding but most of it had slowed down. She curled her fingers towards her palm and saw blood leave the wound a bit faster. “Don’t…”

“Testing it. It’s fine. It won’t need stitches but it’s deep enough that it’ll bleed for a while without pressure.” she spoke making Moxxi nod.

A piece of fresh gauze was placed firmly to the wound, the white haired woman reaching over to hold it in place, her fingers brushing against Moxxi’s in the process. If the woman felt it, she didn’t say a word but Zena blushed a bit. “How long have you been that strong?” finally asked the brunette and she saw Zena’s golden eyes quickly look down. “How. Long?”

Licking at her incredibly dry lips, she raised her head slightly. “Since I was seventeen.”

“Since you…” That seemed to piss the woman off, she set the bottle of rubbing alcohol down a bit too hard and the table rattled. “Since you were seventeen?!”

“I...I didn’t want our friendship to change.” she managed.

Moxxi seemed very mad as she wrapped the bandages around Zena’s hand. “And how would our friendship change if you told me you were super strong?!” She tied the ends and watched as Zena flinched at how tight she did it.

“Don’t make me say it.”

The brunette laughed darkly as she stood up. “Yeah cause you know damn well nothing would have…”

Slamming her injured fist on the table, ignoring the pain that shot through it, Zena spoke without thinking. “I wanted you to love me for me, not my strength!” she snapped out. “We all know damn well, hell even Tina knows damn well, that if you learned I was super strong than you’d be all over me like a skag in heat!” After a moment, she hissed and cradled her injured hand in her good one.

The brunette stared at Zena with wire eyes, what exactly had Zena just said? She wanted Moxxi to love her for her...love her. The look of regret that instantly crossed Zena’s face told her that the girl hadn’t meant to say any of what she did. “Zena, you said…”

Zena sighed heavily and looked at her sadly. “I know what I said.” She shifted and grabbed the box of pizza. “I’m going outside.” She moved off the bench and Raptor followed quickly as the purple clad woman stood there, her hand raised as if she was going to stop her but she recoiled it and just watched Zena leave through the door.

“Mox.” said a voice making her snap out of her stupor and look to see Tina looking at her over the seat. “You are not that stupid that you didn’t notice?”

She bit back the urge to say that she truly hadn’t noticed. She said nothing and turned towards the bar to return to her usual spot. How was she supposed to react to that? Moxxi had known Zena for years, had often chalked up her occasional flirtation as part of woman’s personality. She spent the next two hours wondering if Zena meant love in a romantic way or as a friendship form of love but when it came down to it the younger woman had every right to be weary, sometimes she jumped on a person because of their prowess and not their personality. Hell prowess was half the reason she propositioned Maya as she did Lilith a few years ago.

Moxxi only snapped out of her thoughts when she heard Tina yelling at her that she was leaving, Salvador was bringing her back to the trailer that Tina had been living in at the crater. She noticed the sun had fallen and instantly realized that Zena hadn’t returned inside. She moved around the country and headed outside, she saw Salvador spawn a Bandit and approached the one she knew was Zena’s and stopped by the open trunk. Inside Raptor was laying against the right side of the trunk with Zena fast asleep against the side of him. She carefully tugged the sleeping woman towards her, Raptor looked curiously and she jerked her head to tell him to get out.

Raptor leaped out and she pointed where she was and with the Skag’s help, got Zena on his back. “Come with me.” she ushered making the skag carefully follow the woman, he didn’t want his human to fall off of him.

Instead of putting her on a bench, like one Maya seemed to be passed out on, she held onto Zena’s back as she had Raptor climb up the small set of stairs and towards a door. She stopped and looked at the creature, Raptor was not small enough to fit. She carefully took Zena into her arms, groaning at the woman’s weight and quickly moved into the room. She lowered the girl onto the couch and groaned softly. “What are you doing?” rasped out the 19 year old’s voice.

“Shush.” whispered the brunette as she moved away from the couch and went to a closet. She tugged out a blanket and a comfy pillow. “I wasn’t going to let you sleep outside.”

“We argued.”

Moxxi lightly hit Zena with the pillow, the woman lifting her head for Moxxi to put the pillow under her head. “We’ll talk tomorrow, either before you go get Flyboy or after.” she unfolded the blanket, shook it out and then draped it over the younger woman. “Raptor can sleep in the bar with Maya and Salvador. I’ll get your stuff in here before I come to bed.”

There was no answer and she looked to see Zena was back to sleep and a smile formed on her face. She pushed some loose white strands out of her face and tucked them behind her ear before standing up. The room she had placed Zena in pretty much functioned as every room with a bathroom connected to it. Right by the door was the small kitchen, followed by the living room which just had a couch, coffee table, and a TV, then behind the couch was the king sized bed. She shut the lights off as she exited the room and had Raptor lay by the door since hse knew he wouldn’t go too far from where he knew Zena was. She grabbed Zena’s bag and placed it behind the bar so she wouldn’t lose or forget it.

It wasn’t till around midnight that Moxxi locked up the bar and retreated to her room. Zena had rolled over so her face was facing the back of the couch and the blanket was pulled up to just below her chin. The brunette washed her makeup off her face and changed into her night clothes, a set of purple and black lingerie, before getting under her covers. Her body instantly melting into the bed and she released a soft moan as she stared up at the ceiling of her room. It wasn’t her bed back in Sanctuary but it was comfy enough and it would do, she must’ve been tired than she thought because she passed out with in moments.

There were numerous sounds Moxxi had woken up too before but the sound of clattering dishes was not one. Moxxi shifted and sat up to see Zena walking over to her wearing nothing but her pants and black bra. “I made you breakfast.” Moxxi looked at the plate that had eggs, bacon, toast, and sausage on it, a cup of coffee in her other hand.

“Why are you topless?”

“The grease. I didn’t want to get my shirt dirty…”

The older woman smirked at her as he eyed her up. “Pretty sure I didn’t order tits with my breakfast...I’m too tired to make an innuendo.”

Zena let out a groan and sat the plate in Moxxi’s lap before sitting the cup down on the nightstand. “I didn’t want grease on my shirt.” she huffed.

The brunette hummed and took a piece of sausage and bit into it. “Sit.” she patted the side of the bed as Zena made a move to leave. The white haired woman debated but ultimately sat down on the side of the bed as fingers trailed up her right arm, a faint purple glow coming from where her veins could be seen. “How?”

“Eridium.” she answered. “Cut myself on a spike someone made out of it, small shards were too deal for dad to get out and those bits bonded with me.”

Moxxi placed some eggs on a piece of toast and ate it. “Sugar, I didn’t know you could cook.” Zena shrugged as she leaned back on her hands, her chest pushed out a bit as the older woman ran her pale blue eyes over her curves. She could see small pink spots on her stomach and sides. “Grease burns.”

“I didn’t want my shirt dirty!” she defended.

“Mm…” she hummed as she grabbed her cup of coffee and sipped from it. “They’re nice.” Zena looked at her with a raised brow. “Your tits. They;re nice.”

“Oh my god!” groaned the white haired woman as she fell onto her back, very aware at the happy squeal that left the woman as her breasts moved at the sudden movement.

Eating more of her breakfast, Moxxi looked over her. “We should talk.” Zena tilted her head towards her. “About last night…”

“After Flyboy. I’m not having a serious conversation with you talking to my tits.” she stated reaching over and making Moxxi’s head move so her eyes locked on Zena’s face.

Moxxi tilted her head as she finished the last of her breakfast. The young woman took the plate but left her the cup since she was still drinking her coffee. She put it in the sink and turned the water on to clean it. Finishing her coffee, she rose from her bed and moved over to her closet to grab a clean outfit. She didn’t bother leaving to the bathroom to get dressed, even after Zena turned and moved around the room. She did notice that Zena didn’t look over until she was fully dressed, she looked at the young woman as she pulled her shirt on and rotated her arms.

Moxxi walked over and adjusted her shirt in the back. “What size is your bra?” A small groan was heard. “Come on, Sugar. I need to know.”

She needed to know? “Thirty-six double ds.” Zena answered.

Turning around, she saw Moxxi’s eyes almost immediately latch onto her chest, her teeth sank into the right side of her bottom lip as her pupils seemed blown out. Zena tapped her cheek and she looked up at her innocently as if she hadn’t been caught eyeing her chest. The two left the room and Raptor got excited at the sight of his human, the young woman laughing and playing around with him a little bit as Moxxi made her way to the bar. Maya was sitting up and cleaning her guns, going over her ammo as Salvador seemed to have gotten a beer on his own. Once getting the other two Vault Hunters and getting the arrows she needed from Marcus’ vending machine, they made their way to the Forge where Moxxi knew Flyboy was at.

In all honesty, Zena didn’t know what she expected when she heard about Flyboy but a trash talking sixteen year old sure as shit wasn’t one of them. She did enjoy making him upset as the three of them beat his men and made their way to where he was located. There were parts of Pandora that were hot but Zena swore she’d melt when in the Forge. She tugged at her top in an effort to cool her body off and really wished her top didn’t have that one sleeve, she was going to remake her outfit, get rid of the sleeve because it’s real purpose was to hide her arm and occasional glowing veins from Moxxi’s eyes. Maya was groaning as she followed Zena and Salvador onto the elevator.

“Who’s idea was this section of Pandora?” asked Maya.

“That’s why you shouldn't wear sleeves.” answered Salvador.

Zena grabbed the elevator lever and tucked it, the platform raising as she tilted her head back and groaned loudly. She doesn’t think she’s sweat this much in her life. They reached the top and a buzzard flew over. “Oh fuck you. I hate these things.”

The buzzard flew around and a voice came over their ECHOs. “This is where it ends, you TPR! I’m gonna DT my buzzard with your goddamn SPINE!”

The three Vault Hunters blinked slowly. “Anyone understand that?” asked the 19 year old making them shrug.

“WE’RE READY TO START! FLYBOY VERSUS THE VAULT HUNTER! FIGHT!” shouted Torgue’s voice.

Before they could do anything a missile struck the buzzard and the three watched as Flyboy screamed and the buzzard crashed to the ground. Zena shifted her jaw and knit her brows together. “Huh…”

“HOLY F*CKSH*T! SOME GODDAMN AIRSHIP JUST MURDERED FLYBOY!”

The airship flew by and it’s missile launcher opened as Zena paled. Salvador grabbed her and quickly moved out of the way as missiles were launched, hiding by a wall with Maya taking shelter near the elevator. “This is COMPLETELY against the rules!” shouted Moxxi’s voice. “I DEMAND to know where the ref is!” If someone looked up pissed in the dictionary, it’d probably show Moxxi’s face cause she was not happy.

“WHAT THE F*CK IS A REF?!”

A missile struck the wall where Salvador and Zena were hiding making her actually shriek before looking embarrassed. “What arrows do you have?!” shouted Maya.

Looking down, she noticed she had at least five to six of each color. “I have every elemental arrow, explosive arrows, and normal! Normal’s not gonna do shit!” she shouted.

“Can’t you just stop the missile?!” asked the shorter man.

“NO!” Sure she was strong but she wasn’t THAT strong.

She pulled out an explosive arrow and notched it as she pressed her back to the wall, another missile striking it and shaking the entire wall making her swallow thickly. “Some turrets are comin’ out of that blimp! Hold onto your butts!” shouted TIna’s voice.

Zena knew Tina watched and debated on asking if she was but Tina being Tina, she would obviously watch this sort of stuff. She quickly peaked out and drew the arrow back as she aimed at the blimp before releasing. It flew through the air and slammed into one of the missile launchers. It exploded and she was shoved out of the way by Salvador as a missile nearly hit her. She stumbled and hit the ground as the missile exploded on the ground where she had been previously standing.

She shook her head to get her hair out of her face as she panicked and moved quickly as more missiles were fired at her. “Goddamnit, Piston!” Really bad timing for Zena to find Moxxi’s anger a turn on. “You KNOW you’re not allowed to interfere with ranked matches!”

Piston’s voice let out a laugh. “Rules don’t apply to the champ, baby!”

“Once my Vault Hunter destroys your airship, she is going to stop your cheating ass into the DIRT!”

Zena moved behind a barrier as she pulled two arrows out, one corrosive and one explosive “I’M NOT A CHEATER! THIS IS TACTICS!”

“What are you doing?” asked Maya as she stopped firing at the airship to avoid getting hit by missiles and being shot by buzzards.

“Hitting him with corrosive first then explosive. The corrosive element should eat away enough for the explosive to do actual damage.” she spoke before deciding she’d use two explosive arrows.

Notching the corrosive arrows, she leaned out and aimed at the blimp as Salvador shouted something in Spanish as he laughed, shooting at the buzzards to keep them off them. She fired and watched as the arrow soared through the air and she undid her hair, using her hair tie to hold the two explosive arrows together. The corrosive arrow ate away at the hull and she fired the explosive arrows before shouting as a buzzard’s bullets grazed her left shoulder, Maya quickly using her Phaselock on the buzzard pilot before Salvador killed him. The explosive arrows slammed into the blimp where the corrosive had eaten through and exploded making the blimp start exploding in random places and begin going down.

Torgue came almost instantly started doing an air guitar and made the three Vault Hunters jump. “Vault Hunter, you are now the number two ranked badass in all of Pandora!” Why wasn’t he screaming? Whatever, she didn’t care because she kept a headache forming and her shoulder hurt like a bitch.

“THAT’S MY GIRL! WOOOO!” howled Tina’s voice making Zena smile.

She was looking at her shoulder as Salvador killed the last buzzard when coughing came over the 19 year old’s ECHO. “I’m still alive COWARD! You couldn’t stop me!”

Rolling her golden eyes, the young woman fished out her bandages and wrapped up her shoulder to the best of her ability. “You did great, Sugar!” praised Moxxi. “Now get back here so we can take care of that shoulder and we’ll see about finishing Piston!”

“You stay the HELL away from me, you understand? I don’t wanna see you within a country mile of the champ or things are gonna get MESSY!” retorted Piston.

Raising a brow, Maya walked over to Zena. “Sounds like someone else is the coward and knows we could kick his ass.” she stated fixing the bandages a bit before patting her non-injured shoulder.

“We’re gonna kick his ass.” added Salvador.

The three of them got into the bandit technical and returned to the bar. Moxxi was waiting for them the second they entered the bar and she sat down as Raptor moved over. Since Zena had Maya and Salvador, she decided to let him have a break and chill at the bar with Mox. She bandages were removed and Moxxi properly cleaned the wounds. She pressed a kiss to Zena’s cheek once she finished, leaving a red lipstick print in its wake and she’d be damned if she removed it.

The brunette stood up and moved to get something out from behind her bar and winked at her as she held up the purple gun that had Moxxi’s usual gun design on the side and Moxxi written in white letters on the magazine. “For you sugar! Well...all three of you but I figured I’d let you get dibs on what elemental effect you wanted first.”

The sight of a Moxxi gun made the girl leapt to her feet. She walked over and looked at them. “What effects?”

“I got three done up so obviously not the usual four elemental effects but incendiary, corrosive, or shock.”

“Shock.” she answered quickly, the older woman passing it to her, a smile forming on her face. “What’s it called?”

“Rabid Kitten.”

Humming, Zena rose a brow. “Course it is.”

Moxxi leaned against the bar as she watched the white haired woman look over the gun. “Well you have an odd obsession over getting every gun I’ve had made.” Golden eyes narrowed at her making Moxxi blow her a kiss. “We need to have that talk still…” Shit, they did. Zena just looked at her as Moxxi walk around the bar. “Guys I need to borrow Zena for a while. Salvador…” the man looked at her curiously. “Don’t drink all my stock.”

She heard him bust out laughing as Moxxi took her arm and lead her away towards her room, Raptor following happily but laying by the door as his human went into the entrance that was too small for his body. Setting the gun on the couch, she watched as Moxxi moved towards the bed and sat down, patting the edge of it as she crossed her legs as Zena walked over and sat beside her. The woman tilted her head as she watched the younger woman.

Pursing her lips, the 19 year old looked at her curiously. “I don’t know where to start.”

“You said you wanted me to love you for you. You weren’t worried about our friendship, you were worried about something else.”

“Okay…” was her answered as she tried to think. “If you’re wondering when it started, I was fourteen.” Brows knit together in confusion, it was obvious Moxxi was trying to remember when it could’ve happened. “When I crashed your underdome.”

The look of realization crossed the clown’s face. “O-Oh! Do you know how hard it was for me to do color commentary on a child?!” A snicker escaped the younger woman. “I mean if you did it now, I’d obviously have material. I mean those tits.”

The girl rolled her eyes and groaned. “Stop obsessing over my tits!”

“Their nice!”

“So are yours!” she admitted making Moxxi smirk. “And you don’t see me obsessing over them!”

Pale blue eyes narrowed as she blew a small kiss. “I’ll make you a deal.” The white haired woman tilted her head. “You become the number one badass and I'll let you take me out on a date to figure out if we’re good together or rather if I have feelings for you. Okay?” She cupped Zena’s cheek and hummed as she rubbed her thumb against her cheek.

Leaning against the hand, the younger woman chewed on her lower lip before nodding. “Deal.”

The two walked out of the room, Moxxi firmly spanking Zena’s ass and making her squeal. She grabbed the other two and left with Raptor in tow. She was definitely going to have Raptor there for help cause if Piston was the cowardly little bitch he seemed to be, he’d have other people there to attack her while he attacked. Instead of taking a Bandit, they jogged across the street and through the town to get to the main entrance of the arena. She brought the Kitten gun with her as backup, the Good Touch had been stored away behind the bar with Mox. The three humans and skag entered the arena and almost immediately started hitting the vending machines.

“Say -- what are you planning to do with the arena once the tournament is over?” asked Moxxi’s voice over the ECHO.

Zena snorted with laughter cause she knew Moxxi had been trying to get a new Underdome for so long now. “OH, PROBABLY GET A CONSTRUCTION TEAM IN HERE TO CAREFULLY DISASSEMBLE IT AND WHAT THE F*CK DO YOU THINK?! WE’RE GONNA BLOW IT UP!”

“Oh, Sugar. I got a much better idea.” cooed a voice she swore turned her on just by saying hi.

After getting the ammo she needed, she moved over to the Zed vending machine and held her hand over the control panel and hit the Insta-Heath button a couple times. Perks of being the vending machine owner’s daughter, you get free health items. She took them and placed them into her satchel as she moved her hair, she used her only hair tie to take out the blimp, she’d deal with it. The four of them made their way into the arena, needing to climb over the cement barrier that Piston most likely put there and stopped on the grate over the Vault.

“THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS, FIGHT FANS! ARE YOU READY?!” shouted Torgue’s voice, the crowd’s cheering getting louder at the question.

A sound made them turned and Zena paled once again at the sight of a giant robot Dinosaur. “I told you to stay away, Vault Hunter.” said Piston’s voice. “But now it’s time I fought you in single combat. Gladiator versus Gladiators, versus...GIANT GODDAMN METAL T-REX!” The dinosaur breathed fire and Zena backed up quickly.

“PISTON, YOU CHEATING BASTARD!” screamed Moxxi.

“I AM NOT A CHEATER!” he screamed in retaliation.

Zena grabbed a Corrosive arrow and fired as she ran after Maya and Salvador, Raptor following her without hesitation. “THAT BADASSASAURS IS THE GREATEST MECHANICAL MARVEL I’VE EVER SEEN! IT IS THE HENRY IV OF ROBOTIC DINOSAURS!”

She switched to the Kitten gun and fired only to be surprised when the bullets shot out...in a smiley face pattern? WHY?! “I tell ya, Torgue, this is a legendary battle between good and evil! Between cowardice and heroism!” Moxxi’s tone had a bit of...panic in it? Was it cause Zena could easily be injured or killed by that thing.

“BETWEEN A GIANT METAL T-REXES AND THINGS THAT AREN’T GIANT METAL T-REXES!” added Torgue.

“Well put!”

Zena dodged the path of the fire from the robot as she saw the Siren and Gunzerker firing at it. She swore and looked at Raptor. “Boy!” he looked at her. “I need you to get me up there!” she shouted making him run at her, she grabbed his saddle and hoisted herself up as the skag raced towards the robot. She knew they probably couldn’t destroy the metal T-Rex or if they did, she’d need to get inside and destroy it.

Raptor ran beside it and she leapt off him and onto the robot, nearly falling off in the process. “GET OFF!” shouted Piston’s voice as he made his robot spin, maybe his way of hoping she’d fall off. She climbed up further until she found a hatch. Upon trying to open it, it wouldn’t budge...it was locked.

Pulling harder, she screamed as the lock broke free and she ripped the door off, tossing it aside. Piston was staring up at her in shock. “Sup, bitch?” she asked before reaching down and grabbing him. She flung him from the dinosaur and dropped every single grenade she had on her into the hatch, she moved quick and leapt from it as she whistled sharply.

Raptor made a quick and sharp turn to run back and catch his owner as the grenades went off and the dinosaur began blowing up. Raptor slid behind a barrier and she fell off him to get down low, he followed her reaction. Metal parts flying all over the place and slamming against the ground in smoking heaps. “The Badassasaurus has been destroyed!” shouted Moxxi’s voice.

“IT WILL ALWAYS LIVE ON IN MY HEART!”

Zena peaked up and rose a brow. “Where’d Piston go?”

A foot slammed into Zena and sent her flying a few feet away, Raptor running after her. “FINE! You wanted it, you got it! Prepare to face the champ!” She groaned out and let out a small wheeze as she grabbed at her left ribs. That was when the crowd started chanting the word cheater. He didn’t like that very much.

He took off running at her as Maya tried to Phaselock him but he kept moving, Salvador was unlock and couldn’t hit any of his actual flesh. Zena struggled to pick herself up as Raptor growled, pressing himself to Zena as a form of protection. She grabbed an arrow as he ran at her, just as he slammed the metal that surrounded his hands into her stomach, she stabbed him in the shoulder with an arrow, managing to press the button down before she was sent backwards. “Is that all you got?!” he laughed as she hit the ground and rolled a few times before sliding across the ground, the sand and whatever else scratching up her side.

The arrow started beeping and he looked just before it exploded and fleshy bits were sent all over the place. When it came to explosive arrows, the Torgue cooperation didn’t make wimpy arrows, they packed a goddamn punch. “Ugh I’m in so much pain!” she shouted as she rolled onto her back, flinching as fleshy bits her face and stomach. No matter how much pain she was in, she quickly got into her feet and freaked out.

“THAT’S IT, FOLKS! THE BLOOD OF A COWARDS HAS BEEN SPILLED BY PANDORA’S NUMBER ONE BADASS, ZENA! THE VAULT IS GONNA OPEN!” screamed Torgue as Zena was pulling her water bottle out of Raptor’s saddle bag and pouring it onto her face while shaking her head, bloody streaks of water going down her face as she looked around.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, let's hear it for Zena and the two Vault Hunters that helped her!” cheered Moxxi.

A loud bang went off and Zena actually jumped. A purple light admitting from the floor where the grate was. “THE VAULT IS OPENING! IT’S TIME FOR A LOOTSPLOSION!” An actual explosion went off and loots flew into the area as Torgue did a guitar solo.

She rubbed at her face and released a small laughed. “Go grab me something.” Raptor let out a noise and ran towards Maya and Salvador as they got their loot. She just needed a second. She ran over once she composed herself, catching the gun Salvador threw at her.

“You looked funny freaking out.” he spoke making Zena glare at her. “I mean come on, _Arquera_! You’re a Pandoran!”

“Doesn’t mean I like blood on me that isn’t my own!” she retorted. Maya and Salvador laughed before the three of them finished looting. 

They looted what they wanted, the other stuff they sold off through the vending machines. When they left the arena was when Zena realized just how achey she felt and her side was scratched up to high heaven but she needed to clean it. The four of them went back to the bar where Moxxi moved towards Zena quickly and stopped as she saw her sides. She locked up for the night, since by the time they got back to the bar it was night, and made Zena go into the room to lay on her good side. She needed to clean and disinfect the wound, there was sand and gravel in the wound that Moxxi managed to completely remove before pouring some rubbing alcohol onto it, she hissed in pain and Moxxi rubbed at her shoulder before pressing gauze to the wound.

Zena shifted slightly and looked at the brunette. “This might be a usual thing?” the woman hummed as she looked at her. “If we’re together. I get wounded a lot.”

A soft chuckle left her and she wrapped bandages around her stomach to hold the gauze in place. She pushed the needle of an Insta-Health into her side and injected the serum into her. “Well I have good bedside manner.” she teased. A smile formed on the younger woman’s face. “So, you won. You get a date. Say...a week from today?”

“A week from today?” she repeated, the woman nodding. “Okay, that gives me time to think of something.”

The woman leaned over and kissed her cheek, the lips leaving another mark just below the first one. “We’ll go back to Sanctuary tomorrow morning. Let you rest.” That sounded like a good idea, the younger woman’s eyes falling shut as Moxxi cover her up. “Goodnight, Sugar.”

Before she drifted off to sleep, Zena wondered what else she could do to keep herself busy but she knew she would probably spend the next week freaking out what to do for her date with Moxxi.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is nothing more than just Moxxi and Zena’s relationship (I’ve got chapters 3 and 4 planned.) and there might be some side missions if I can find some I like or I’ll just make up some. This chapter has Fiona and Rhys from Telltale's Tales from the Borderlands (which is considered canon btw) so spoilers for a certain part if you've never played it. If you haven't, then I recommend watching some gameplay of it, I really enjoy it myself.
> 
> Sorry it took me so long to update, I was doing some other stuff and I originally planned on updating on my birthday (August 7th) but...again I got busy doing other stuff.
> 
> Also enjoy my attempt at smut, I don't write a whole lot of it but I tried my best :)

When they returned to Sanctuary, Zafina wasn’t too happy when she heard that Moxxi agreed to a date with Zena. It wasn’t so much that she hated Moxxi, it was that she knew how Moxxi was and that she could easily break her daughter’s heart. She was also not happy to see how messed up Zena was after her time in the Badass Crater, her mama instincts kicking in and she was angry with herself for not going with her. She had forcibly removed her ex-boyfriend/father of her child from his clinic and made him look over all her wounds that haven't fully healed from her injecting herself with Insta-Healths. She was also not so happy when he claimed that Moxxi had done a good job cleaning and bandaging the wounds.

She refused to let Zena leave Sanctuary for two days until her wounds were practically gone. Her side had healed up faster and all there was left was the fading bruise on her stomach from Piston kicking her.

It had been a full week since Moxxi said they could go out on a date together when Zafina nearly dropped her coffee up as she heard shouting. The sound of what she’d compare to a herd of wild skags running down the stairs. Zena slid into the kitchen and nearly fell over. “Calm down. I just woke up.” Zafina groaned as she poured her cup of coffee.

“I forgot about our date! I don’t know what to do!”

The older woman turned and narrowed her golden eyes at her daughter’s clothing. Her typical fashion but her top no longer had the one sleeve and sported no sleeves, stopped a few inches below her breasts, and her jean like pants. It was the pattern that made her slightly bothered, it said ‘ _Moxxxi’s_ ’ right across her breasts and had the icons from Moxxi’s slot machines on the top and jeans. “And your plan was to wear that?” she asked in annoyance.

“Mom.” she groaned. “I get it. You hate Moxxi but…”

“I don’t hate Moxxi. I just know that she could easily break your heart.” the 38 year old retorted.

Sighing, Zena rubbed at her face. “Can we cross that bridge if it happens?”

The older woman turned to face her once her coffee was properly made up. “Sure. Now you said something about a date?”

The 19 year old nodded. “I might have forgotten until I realized what today was.” she muttered sheepishly.

Sipping her coffee, she leaned back against the counter as she looked at her daughter. “Well staying in sanctuary is most likely a no go. I mean what are you gonna do? Eat at her bar? Where are your hunting platforms?” Zena rose a brow. “Hammerlock made your hunting platforms, I know it’s not just a typical Pandroan decor. I know he made it functional. Where are they?”

“Three Horns Valley, Highlands, Lynchwood, and Hammerlock set one up for me in Hunter’s Grotto. He’s working on other locations for me.” she answered.

“Cook something, go hunting; quickly. Cook, make a picnic, take her to one of your hunting platforms. Maybe the Highlands one, seems more scenic.”

It was a good idea actually, why hadn’t she thought of that? She grabbed her mother and kissed her cheek before running to get her boots on. She grabbed her bow, which Moxxi still hadn’t given a name yet, and ran out of the house while shouting for Raptor to follow. The Skag racing after his human as they ran to the Pierce Station. They both traveled to Three Horns Valley so she could grab a couple skags, cause even though she owned a skag...she weirdly liked skag steak. 

Zafina thankfully took over the cooking when she returned so she could run over to the bar and see Moxxi. She jogged up the stairs and didn’t see Moxxi at the bar. A brow instantly rose in confused, where was she? The sound of a door banging open made her walk to the right side of the bar and look around the wall towards the piano that was never played to see Moxxi backing up and holding two crates of alcohol that looked to be a tad bit heavy for her.

Rushing over, she placed her hands over Moxxi’s once she turned, her vision obscured by the crates, but she tapped an index finger against the top of the brunette’s hand. The hands slipped away and Moxxi looked to see Zena standing there. “Heya Sugar.” she greeted as she had Zena turn around and walk to the bar with the crates.

Zena sat them on the bar as Moxxi went behind it and watched as the younger woman took one of the crates off the other and sat it down. “Our date is today.” Moxxi hummed and looked at her with a small smile. “I know you’re not an outdoorsy type but we’re going to one of my hunting platforms.”

“Uh...why?”

“Hammerlock made them, Mox. They’re obviously luxurious.” Moxxi hummed and pursed her lips at the statement. “Please trust me.”

Moxxi hoisted herself up onto the counter to get close and press a kiss to her cheek. “I do.” She allowed herself to drop down, her heels clacking against the ground as her pale blue eyes latched onto the words on Zena’s chest. “Mm...I see you’re wearing the outfit I got made for you.”

The outfit wasn’t just made for her and Zena knew it, she made a version of the outfit for the other hunters but gave Zena hers first. “Yeah of course. I got it yesterday morning but was already dressed and too lazy to change.” she retorted making the woman chuckle. “Although I’m sure nobody else has the bar name across their tits.”

The brunette hummed as she kept her eyes locked on the words. “They’re nice.” she complimented. Since Moxxi saw her in her bra, she was obsessed over her tits.

“So you tell me.” That earned a chuckle from the older woman. “Look, give me two hours and I’ll be back for ya. That work?”

“It does. Gives me enough time to restock.” nodded Moxxi. “I’ll see you soon.” She blew Zena a kiss before the blushing 19 year old turned and left the bar.

With her mother’s help, she made skag steak, some sort of potato salad with hard boiled Rakk eggs cut up in it, and a sweet pastry for their desert. Zafina had even included a bottle of wine and two wine glasses, putting them into the picnic basket that her daughter had stored away and didn’t even remember having. The younger girl had spent most of her time at home trying to help Zafina before being shooed out of the kitchen and left to her own devices. She just settled with working on her current project of making a half psycho mask with a cat ear attached to the top, but she was also making one that covered her entire face.

Zafina gave her the basket once everything was finished and Zena undid her ponytail, shaking her hair out a bit to give it more body and shape. She made her way to the bar after giving her mother a kiss on the cheek and tried everything in her mind to keep her nerves calm. She approached the bar and saw Moxxi walking out from behind it, Moxxi took Zena’s hand and giggled at the blush that appeared on the 19 year old’s cheeks. The brunette squeezed her hand before allowing the younger woman to lead her to Pierce Station.

The white haired woman punched in the location before releasing Moxxi’s hand to wrap her right arm around her waist and pull her close. Hitting one more button, they used the traveling station to go to the Highlands. They appeared just beside a Catch-a-Ride station and Moxxi waited patiently as Zena got her Bandit. The Bandit had a new paint job from what Moxxi could tell, it seemed like the night sky; dark blue paint with white dots which most likely represented the stars. She looked to see Zena leaning over the bar that was in place of the door, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as she locked eyes on the young woman’s ass.

The 19 year old grabbed the upper bars and hoisted herself up to slip right into the seat. “Make room.” ordered Moxxi as she climbed up, sliding into the woman’s lap. “I prefer this seat.”

“It’ll be hard to drive with you in my lap.” she chuckled as she shifted Moxxi slightly to be sideways, her back pressing against the wall. If Moxxi leaned forward than her breasts would press against Zena’s arm. “There, you can stay like that? It’s a short trip.”

A hum was her answer as a hand sank itself into her hair, pressing a kiss to her forehead. A soft smile formed itself on the younger woman’s lap before she put the Bandit in drive and drove towards where Hammerlock had her hunting perch. There wasn’t much to hunt, sure there were the stalkers and a lot of people paid well for their hide or their...uh...Sachs’ organ. Hammerlock had built it into a mountain, overlooking a great deal of the Highlands and she could just make out the bridge that lead to Handsome Jack’s shitty city from one of her windows. Parking the Bandit in the sort of garage that the gentleman had made, she carefully eased Moxxi out of the window before following.

“So...how do we get up there?”

The younger woman stepped down from the Bandit and moved to closed the door, securing it in place so no Psycho got any bright ideas. “Elevator.” She pointed as she walked over and hit the button. The elevator lowered and she stepped in, her hand held out and Moxxi took it without hesitation. Another press of the button and the elevator rose.

The inside was as Zena said, anything but Pandoran. Sir Hammerlock had made it luxurious with probably the finest furniture imported from another planet or from Aurelia if he wasn’t fighting with her...he was always fighting with her. It was all one large room, minus the bathroom and the wall that hid the bed. The purple clad woman moved around as the white haired woman sat the basket on the table situated by the large windows, a balcony wrapping around the part of the platform that wasn’t buried in the mountain. Why it was called a platform, Moxxi had no idea cause this was designed to act as a home away from home and she felt slightly jealous.

Looking at the blankets on the bed, she slid her hands across the blankets and swore if she was laying down, she would have melted into the bed. The blankets felt silky on top but on the bottom, it was a form of wool maybe with the sheets looking similar to the underneath of the blanket. She pushed a hand into the pillow and whined softly as she felt exactly how soft it was, she was almost tempted to lay down and relax but she knew she had a date to attend too. Turning, she saw a watercolor painting of Moxxi with her megaphone above the TV that sat on the dresser, a bookshelf beside it.

“You done admiring my bedroom?” inquired Zena’s voice and Moxxi looked at the smug face of the other woman, a look she rarely saw on her.

“Hammerlock does a good job.” Moxxi answered as she moved to the bookshelf. An arrow was hanging on the back wall with what looked like Moxxi’s name written across the shaft in pink lettering. “When did I...did I sign this?”

Stepping over, Zena looked and nodded with a noise. “It was around the time I was going...ah…” she tilted her head. “Oh, going to break out Roland with the other Vault Hunters. I guess I left my quiver in the bar and you took one out, signed it.” she reached over and carefully removed the arrow from the holder she had designed for it. “You wrote Zena’s Lucky Arrow, love Moxxi on it.” The brunette looked at the pink letters and what looked like a fading lip print, it did indeed say that. “I didn’t know you did that until I pulled it out of the head of a Bloodshot that was close to killing me. So I guess, in a way, you were right, It was my lucky arrow.” She laid the arrow back down in it’s holder and smiled. “I came here after, built that and hung up the arrow. I don’t want to risk it being broken or lost.”

Red lips pursed as she stared at the arrow before shifting her eyes to see several books stacked up and held close together by a bookend that resembled the symbol that Scooter used for the Catch-a-Ride, a psycho mask painted pink with several designs that had to have been done by Tina, a few random knick knacks that Zena either found or bought, and lastly was two gun holders small enough for pistols but only one was occupied. It was a pink and dark pink gun, it’s paint done similar to camo and Moxxi tilted her head. “That looks like a gun Tina would give someone?”

“Cause it was. She named it Teapot.” chuckled the 19 year old as she looked at it. “I rarely use it so it’s place is…” she waved a hand towards it. “The other is for Rubi but I try to use Rubi a lot.” Moxxi took Zena’s hand and stroked the top of her hand with her thumb. “Come on, there’s food.”

She lead Moxxi over to the table and once she sat down, she pushed the chair in and moved to her seat. The food was already put out with the wine glasses and bottle of wine, the younger woman quickly uncorked the bottle. She had planned on keeping it but to be honest, once it was freed of the bottle...she had no idea where the cork even went. She poured their wine glasses, stopping when Moxxi held her hand up and putting the bottle aside, she grabbed her fork and knife and smiled. 

“Skag steak and some sort of potato salad with hard boiled Rakk eggs, mom made it.” she informed making Moxxi nod and cut a piece of her steak off and bite into it. She let out a pleased noise and winked, a flush appearing in Zena’s cheeks.

They ate in silence for a bit before Moxxi nudged Zena’s leg. “Talk to me.” The girl stopped mid chew and rose a brow. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

Something Moxxi didn’t know? Zena looked at her food as she knit her brows together as she tried to think. What could she the woman that she didn’t already know? “I’m not...I mean…” she struggled. “You’ve known me for five years…”

“Mm-hm.” hummed the other woman as she chewed. “And yet I don’t know things about you. Favorite food, favorite color, favorite body part on a woman…”

“What we’re eating, I don’t really have a favorite color but I guess I’d go with red, and…” her eyes lingered on Moxxi’s lips as she thought about the body part. When asked, she was more into breasts than asses. “Lips.” she said without meaning too.

That made Moxxi raise a brow. “Lips huh? I thought you’d be a breasts woman.”

“I am...I mean yours are nice...I...stop making me flustered.” she groaned as she looked down at her food, her cheeks about as red as Moxxi’s old outfit five years ago. “I know you’re a breasts woman cause you obsessed over mine the moment you saw them.”

A shrug accompanied by a sip of wine was all Moxxi did as if trying to be nonchalant about it. “They’re nice.” That was Moxxi’s answer every time they brought up her chest. “And, if you don’t mind me being so blunt, I’d love to see them out of your bra.”

A small groan came from Zena as she buried her face in her hands and Moxxi busted out laughing. Hands took her own and gingerly pulled them back from her face to see Moxxi leaning forward, she hated to admit it but her eyes look directly at the cleavage in front of her before looking up. “Gods you’re pretty.” whispered Zena making a small sweet smile form on the older woman’s face.

“Let us finish dinner and well…” she squeezed her hands before bringing them to her lips and kissing her knuckles, a sultry, or was it a suggestive, look on the older woman’s face.

A nod was her answer and Moxxi slid her hands from Zena’s, she noticed how cold her hands felt once they were released but she turned her attention to her dinner and cut up the rest of her steak. Moxxi made idle chit chat about Scooter or Ellie, sometimes she’d bring up the bar or patrons that she thought were the weirdest aside from Zena and the Vault Hunters. Setting her fork and knife down, the 19 year old wiped her mouth off on the napkin before standing up and taking her plate to bring it too the sink. She walked back to the table and downed her wine before motioning for Moxxi’s plate upon seeing it clear, she took the dishes and sat them in the sink, running water over them but she figured she’d do the dishes later.

Arms slipped around her waist and breasts pressed against her back. “What’s the one thing you want most?” whispered the brunette.

Narrowing her eyes in thought, she stared down at the sink. “I can’t say.”

“Tell me.” Her waist was squeezed lovingly.

“You.” she answered with a small sigh. “Not in a sexual way, I mean that’d be a perk but I wanted you to love me.”

A hand rose up and brushed the white hair over Zena’s left shoulder before a kiss pressed against the back of her neck, she knew by how sticky it felt when the lips left her, that there was a lipstick print there. “You are sweet, beautiful, smart, definitely girlfriend material.” Zena tilted her head to the side as the breasts pressed firmer to her back. “Just answer me this; why me?”

Turning in Moxxi’s arms, she looked at her with an unreadable expression. As if she couldn’t understand why she had been asked or that she was searching for an answer. “Because you’re smart, deadly, sexy. The moment I knew I loved you was watching you give your color commentary on Lilith, it hadn’t been your looks. I think it was somewhere you calling the Vault Hunters scaredy cats for running and om nom nom. I snuck in.” Moxxi rose a brow. “Gods I snuck in so much, the security you had wasn’t exactly the brightest. I used to sit somewhere up high and just...watch. At first I watched the fights but eventually I just started watching you move around the platform of yours as you shouted through your megaphone.”

Zena’s brows knit together in annoyance as her eyes narrowed. “What’s going through that head?” whispered the older woman.

“I was there when Jack took the Underdome, destroyed the Underdome.” she growled out as she thought about it. He had accused Moxxi of cheating on him, maybe she had been but he went too far. He even destroyed the Megaphone, something she knew the woman enjoyed.

The woman let out a soft laugh. “You were what attacked him just after it blew up.” she whispered. “All I remember is white hair and him screaming about a little savage sinking her teeth into him.” She used her hand to part Zena’s mouth to stare at the fang like canines that she had inherited from her mother, hell she inherited almost everything from her mother except maybe some facial features that Zed had. “You nearly tore a chunk out of his shoulder.” She giggled as Zena went to bite her hand. “I don’t think I put two and two together! You ran off as soon as his men started shooting at you.”

“I like biting people. I bit Athena when she insulted you during that whole General Knoxx armory bullshit.” she smirked. “Should’ve seen her face when she saw me on Elpis when I was looking for mom two years ago. She was trying so hard not to seem as though she was scooting around me without getting too close, I can bite hard enough to draw blood but...uh…” She looked down as Moxxi pushed her thumb against the bottom canine. “Can I help you?”

The sight of the brunette biting at her lower lip was a total turn on and she hated herself for being turned on right now. “Been biting people for lil old me?” she cooed making a muffled laugh escape the 19 year old, she removed the thumb from her mouth and held the hand in her own.

In case the other woman had any other ideas, she took the other hand in her free one. “I don’t try to break the skin, I don’t usually like someone else’s blood in my mouth. Hell I can barely handle the taste of my own when I bite my lip, tongue, or get hit hard enough that there’s blood.”

Pursing her painted lips in though, she squeezed the hands in her own. “Ever bite during sex?”

“Never had sex.”

Why did Moxxi look so appalled when hearing that? She stepped back, spread her arms out while keeping hold on the young woman’s hands to look her up and down. “I’m sorry, excuse me? You’ve...what?”

“Never had sex?”

Their hands slipped free of one another and hands quickly cupped the younger woman’s face. “You’re lying right? There’s no way you’re a virgin!” A blush of either embarrassment or shame appeared on Zena’s cheeks. “I don’t mean that in a bad way! I just mean I’m surprised nobody has tried to get into your pants, Sugar. You’re beautiful! Just...really?! You haven’t had sex?!”

Okay so what? She was 19 years old and never had sex before. Granted she’s thought about it and Tannis has propositioned her enough, as she did with the other Vault Hunters, but why did Moxxi need to act so surprised? She sheepishly rubbed at her neck and shrugged. “Never.”

Moxxi saw the look on the young woman’s face and instantly sort of felt bad. “I’m sorry, Sugar.” she spoke making Zena look at her. “I shouldn’t have made a big deal about it but if I’m brutally honest, I thought you’ve had sex with at least a couple women by now.”

“Not sure if I’m flattered or not.” she muttered making the brunette cringe a bit, okay maybe that didn’t come out exactly how she wanted it too. “I know you didn’t mean for it to sound the way you said it.” Pursing her lips, she cupped Moxxi’s jaw in her hands and stared at her. “You want to know why I never had sex, I mean aside from the fact tht nobody ever asked me?” she asked, a small chuckle breaking through at the last bit. Moxxi nodded as she wrapped her hands around her wrists, her fingertips pressing against the pulse point, it was beating rapidly. “Cause I wanted you to be my first...everything.”

Zena being taller, meant even in her heels, Moxxi had to push herself up onto her tiptoes to have her lips just inches from the 19 year old’s. “So sweet.” she cooed before the white haired woman closed that gap by pulling Moxxi closer, their lips pressing together in nothing more than a chastise kiss. Their lips broke apart with a small wet noise and the younger girl had a nice blush in her cheeks as she realized exactly what they had done.

Hands slid up her arms before Moxxi wrapped her arms around her neck and pulled her close. Their lips pressing together once more but Zena released a surprised noise as Moxxi tugged her down a bit as she lowered herself down onto her feet. Her arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her close as her eyes fluttered closed. The moment a tongue teased against the seam of the younger woman’s lips, she parted them without hesitation, once their tongues touched someone moaned, god who moaned? Arms slightly tightened around the brunette’s waist as their tongues pressed together and tasted one another before Moxxi tilted her head back, their lips breaking apart.

“H-Hey.” whined the younger woman at the loss of lips against her own. She tilted her head before giggling. “Lipstick is smeared.”

“Your fault.” answered Moxxi.

“My fault.” nodded the young woman as she leaned forward for another kiss.

Moxxi laughed and moved her head to avoid another kiss, lips pressing to just below her jaw and she actually let out a sigh of pleasure. “Sugar, we should take this to your bed.”

Humming, Zena slid her hands down over her ass before grabbing her thighs and lifting her up making her squeal softly once she was hoisted off her feet. Carrying Moxxi was like carrying her gun, hardly any weight at all but that could’ve been because of her strength. Unlike her actual items, she carefully sat Moxxi down on the edge of her bed like she was a priceless piece of art that could get damaged if she so much as put her down too hard. She knelt in front of her and wrapped her arms around her waist as she nuzzled her stomach.

A hand lazily ran through her white hair before cupping the back of her neck. A soft cooing noise made the golden eyed woman tilt her head back at the other woman. “You’re so precious. Treating me as if I’ll break…” The look on Zena’s face made Moxxi realize the young woman though she did something wrong. “No, no. It’s actually really sweet and I adore it. I’ve had girlfriends, hell you killed one of them, but none of them treated me as you treat me.” She tugged Zena up and their lips met briefly. “You want to go all the way?”

“Sex?” Moxxi hummed as she nodded, rubbing at the side of Zena’s neck and feeling that her pulse was still racing. “Yes.” She kissed Moxxi quickly as she pushed her gently onto her back, pecking several soft kisses to her lips as she climbed on top of her.

Hands slid across her sides before running over the swell of breasts making the younger of the two inhale sharply as the hands tested the weight before gently squeezing. “God you do look amazing in the outfit I had designed.”

“Cause your name is across my tits?”

A soft chuckle escaped the woman as she rubbed her thumb against where Zena’s nipple was, feeling it harden. “Perhaps. Let people know you’re mine.”

Their lips met quickly before Zena made a noise and sat back. “I want one thing.” A brow rose in question. “Go to my bathroom, remove your makeup and reapply your lipstick. You can come out in your bra and panties if you wish but...I sorta had this idea of me…” she made a ripping motion right above Moxxi’s breasts.

“I only have one dress, tiger.”

“I have oversized shirts that I would fucking love you to wear. Please, pretty please with whip cream on top?”

Lips met hers in a short but sweet kiss. “Can the whip cream be on you?”

“Whatever you want.”

Moxxi smirked and nodded. “Alright, give me a few minutes.”

The moment the brunette entered the bathroom, the door closing behind her, Zena felt all the anxiety that had been bottled up and exhaled shakily. Okay so maybe she should’ve had a talk about sex with her mother before this happened. She swore to herself as she fisted her hands in her hair and looked around frantically. She had toys, why did she have them? To be honest, she wasn’t even entirely sure, but if she had to guess then it was because they were gifts.

The door behind her opened and she looked to see Moxxi’s face free of all her makeup except for her lipstick. She walked by Zena, dragging her hand across her stomach before sitting on the edge of the bed. Moxxi leaned over and pressed a kiss to her stomach before dragging her lips lower and shifted the young woman’s waist band to press a kiss near her right hip but on her waist. Shifting, she grabbing Moxxi’s thighs and hoisted her up a bit further onto the bed as she carefully guided her to lay back with her head on a pillow. “Where’s your hat?” Moxxi waved a hand towards the table near the bathroom to see it sitting there. “Right…”

Taking her right hand, she undid the strap that was connected to her holster before pulling the fingerless glove off; repeating the action with her left hand. She shifted downward and pulled her heeled boots, fishnet and tight off before tossing them onto the floor. Dragging her hands upwards across Moxxi’s sides, she rested them on one of the top buttons and swiftly undid it before grabbing it firmly and pulled hard. Several buttons popped off, flying in different directions and Moxxi bit at her own lower lip as she watched the younger woman. “Oh tiger.” she purred as she saw the golden eyed run over every inch of her before tapping her cheek. “I’m undressed so can I…”

A nod was her answer and Moxxi slid her hands up the back of Zena’s top before tugging it off, tossing it aside before letting her arms fall out of her now ruined dress. A hand reached down and undid the button and zipper on Zena’s pants before the younger woman wiggled out of them and kicked them aside. Now the both of them were left in their bra and panties; Zena wore a black bra with matching panties where Moxxi’s bra was black but her panties were a nice bright shade of blue...cyan? “Oh god...I don’t know what to do.” she admitted as she stared at Moxxi.

Arms wrapped around her neck and she was pulled down into a kiss, she laid her body on top of the older woman’s and returned the kiss as she tilted her head. Moxxi grabbed at her ass as their tongues tasted one another’s and they both released small little moans. A hand slowly trailed up Zena’s back before nimble fingers undid the hooks that held the younger woman’s bra closed and Zena took that chance to break the kiss for air. Red lipstick smeared on her lips as she sat up and tossed her bra aside, watching as the older woman arched her back and angled her hands behind her to undo her bra.

Instead of resuming the kiss, hands cupped breasts and pale blue eyes stared at the young woman’s chest. “They as great as you hoped?” she asked before her hips jerked at Moxxi pinching her nipples, rolling them a bit to make them nearly rock hard; so hard they were borderline painful in a good way. “Okay, whoa...that’s way better than when I play with myself.”

“Play with yourself, huh?” cooed the brunette as she leaned towards her chest, running her tongue across her left nipple. She heard a hum and saw her nod. “What do you think about?”

“You.”

A nice hard suck to her nipple was her...reward? A popping noise was all she heard as Moxxi removed her mouth from her breast. “Oh? Finger yourself to me?” Zena nodded and Moxxi took the nipple back in her mouth, sucking and rolling her tongue over the hardened nub as she slid one hand around her to pull her into her lap. She slid the hand around her hip and slid it between her legs, pulling her panties out of the way as she rubbed at Zena. “Like that?”

A gasp escaped her as her hips jerked a little. Kissing across her breast, she leaned her head against it as she looked down to watch her fingers move against Zena’s pussy. “Mox…”

“Tell me what you think about.” she interrupted as she looked up at Zena as her fingers rubbed against her, never dipping into her like she wanted. “Tell. Me.”

Groaning softly, she slid a hand into Moxxi’s hair. “O-Okay. I...like all of the times or…”

“Last time you masturbated.”

“That was two days ago…” She swallowed thickly as she tried to think, Moxxi wasn’t stopping her fingers. “I imagined you were fucking me, telling me what a good girl I was; your good girl.”

Humming, the fingers rubbed faster and Zena swore she felt some of Moxxi’s fingers dip into her. “How was I fucking you?”

“I was bent over your lap and you had your fingers in me.” she managed.

Moxxi’s fingers curled and pushed into her making Zena’s hips jerk and a thick moan escaped her. “Well you’re not bent over my lap but I suppose this position will do.” she purred moved her fingers in and out of her.

There were times she dreamt of Moxxi fingering her or even thought about it while pleasing herself but this...this was so much different, so much better. Her hips rocking into the woman’s hand as she tilted her head back, a breathy moan escaping her as she felt herself tightening around the fingers inside of her and the coil building in the stomach. She reached down and pushed on Moxxi’s hand to push the fingers in deeper and the moment her fingers curled, she hunched over and her hips stilled as she struck her climax with a small cry of the woman’s name. The woman cooed as she slowed her fingers down before sliding them out of Zena and instantly took the fingers into her mouth to suck them clean.

She pressed a kiss to Zena’s temple and rubbed at her back. “Already?” A small whine came from the younger woman. “Alright, I’ll let it pass.” she teased as she felt the woman nuzzle her neck. “Aw, you’re cuddly after an orgasm.”

“It’s very different when someone else has their fingers in me.” Zena muttered as she inhaled Moxxi’s scent. The woman chuckled and stuck one of her fingers in her mouth to suck it clean, repeating the action with the second finger.

Moxxi shifted a bit to lean back against the wall to stroke at Zena’s hair. “Such a good girl.” she cooed.

A giggle escaped the younger woman as she tilted her head back. “Cause I came for you?”

“You’re just a good girl.” she praised as she gently rubbed her knuckles against the woman’s cheeks.

Leaning up, she pressed her lips to Moxxi’s and ran her tongue across her bottom lip. She quickly withdrew and looked at her in confusion at what she tasted. Pale blue eyes shone with mischief as Moxxi took the fingers she had used to finger Zena and stuck them into her mouth to suck at them a bit. A deep blush appeared on her cheeks once realizing what Moxxi was referring too. Forcing the fingers from the woman’s mouth, she pressed their lips back together and nibbled at her lower lip. 

Their tongues met one another as Zena laced a hand into the brunette’s hair and deepen it, her head tilting to the side as their tongues tasted one another. She pulled back and kissed at her jaw as she made her way down to the woman’s breasts. Nuzzling them, she purred as she rubbed at her nipples. The woman inhaling sharply as Zena tweaked one between her index finger and thumb, a smirl forming on the young woman’s face. Leaning over, she ran her tongue around it before sucking almost lazily at it.

Her name was moaned and she looked up at Moxxi as she lightly bit at the nipple, tugging ever so slightly before releasing it. “Easy with those fangs.” she gasped out as she felt the tip of one fang pressed against her breast. A small playful growl escaped the younger woman as she carefully took some of her breast into her mouth and had her fangs pressing the flesh. “No biting my tits, sweetie.” The woman moved back and lapped at her nipple slowly. 

Switching breasts, she sucked at the neglected one as she rolled her hips. She saw Moxxi’s head tilt back as she moaned and her legs spread before wrapping around Zena as she rolled her hips. A free hand coming up to squeeze and play with Moxxi’s other breast as golden eyes stared up at her curiously. She released the breast and pressed a kiss to her nipple before kissing the space between her breasts. “Spread for me.” Zena purred making Moxxi raise a brow but unwrap her legs from the woman, bend her legs up with her feet pressed against the bed and slid them apart. “So, fingers, toy or…”

“Mouth.” interrupted Moxxi, she slid a hand into the long white hair and nudged her downward. “Toy after.”

Shifting down between her legs, she looked at Moxxi’s panties before pushing them out of the way and rubbing her thumb against her pussy. “How the hell are you so wet?”

“Someone worked me up.” she laughed.

Humming, Zena shifted to pull Moxxi’s panties down and tossed them aside. The way they just flung clothes around, they’d be looking for them come morning. “Now keep in mind, I’ve never eaten someone out before.” she stated as she settled back between her legs and slowly dragged her tongue across her. A shuddering moan escaped the other woman and she looked at her curiously before dragging her tongue up and down. She slipped an arm under Moxxi’s left leg and hoisted it onto her shoulder as she used her hand to spread her other leg further.

Her tongue dipping inside of her and a sharp inhale was her reward. “That’s good. You s-sure you’ve never eaten a woman? Cause why…” the tongue pushed in deeper and she grabbed at the back of her head. “H-How would you know spreading my leg would spread me open a bit more?” Zena shrugged as she moved her tongue inside of her and pulled her firmly against her mouth as she used one hand to settle on her pelvis, her thumb pressing against her clit to rub it in small circles.

A heavy and rather lewd moan came from Moxxi as the thumb rubbed firmly against her and Zena’s tongue slowly slid out of her. “Well you taste delicious.” she cooed looking up at Moxxi before removing her thumb and sucked at her clit.

A shuddering gasp escaped her as a hand slid into her hair and held her close, her hips rolling against Zena’s mouth as she felt herself nearing her orgasm. Two fingers slid inside of her and began doing the same motion as Moxxi’s hand done inside of Zena. Her hips rocked against the younger woman’s mouth as she fingers pumped into her and occasionally curled, a tongue swirling around her clit before sucking hard at it.

The moment the woman’s back arched and a rather loud, throaty moan left as she came. Zena giggled and slid her tongue down to clean her up as she slid her fingers out of her. She looked at her fingers and sucked at her fingers in the same manner Moxxi had with her own. “Save some for me.” Zena looked at her with wide eyes. “I lick my fingers clean after I masturbate, give.”

Laying beside the older woman, she watched as her wrist was gently taken and a tongue touched her index finger before slipping it into her mouth. Her tongue swirled around her finger before sucking at it and she quickly switched fingers, taking her middle finger into her mouth. “Why is this oddly erotic?” A smile formed as Moxxi slid the finger out.

“Cause it is.” Moxxi cooed as she felt the 19 year old settle beside her and kiss at her shoulder. “Now give me a break for a bit, not as young as I used to be.”

Shuffling down a bit, she rested her head on Moxxi’s shoulder and drew patterns on her stomach with her fingers, once they were dried, and settled against her. “A break. Right.”

Grabbing the blanket, she covered the both of them up, The younger of the two feeling the other roll over onto her side to face her, a hand brushing her hair from her face and their lips pecked together a few times. She pulled her close and felt the younger woman settle her face in her neck as she rubbed at her neck.

Moxxi fell asleep for a short period of time and when she awoke, she realized she was left alone in the bed. From what she could see from the windows that it was night time, she inhaled deeply and looked around. The events of what had happened came back to her and she relaxed in the bed as she chuckled. Stretching with a groan, she looked to the right as and her pale blue eyes widened in surprise at what looked to be a strap on sitting on the nightstand with a bottle of what looked like flavored lube.

Shifting to the edge of the bed, she pushed the blankets off her and moved towards the kitchen where Zena was sitting at the table bare naked. She was staring down at a piece of paper, so many scrapped pieces on the floor around her. She heard movement and looked as Mox bent down to grab a ball of paper, uncrumpling it and staring at. “What are these?” she inquired tilting it several ways to try and see what it was.

“Designing another sign for your bar but all I can think of is tits.”

The brunette busted out laughing. “Tits huh? My tits?”

“Your tits.”

A kiss pressed to her forehead and she watched as the 19 year old grabbed the paper and ripped it from the page, crumpling it and tossing it aside. She turned in the seat and slid her hands over her sides as she tugged her close to press kisses to her stomach. “I love cuddling you but I couldn’t fall asleep after you did.” she spanked her lightly as hands ran through her hair and Zena sucked at a spot near her waistline hard enough to leave a hickey for later.

Standing up, she felt arms wrap around her neck as she settled her own hands on the other woman’s hips. “Now, I saw a strap on.” She hummed at the statement. “We going to use that?”

“Planned on it.” purred Zena. “It’s a double ended one. So...I figured with my strength…”

“I’ll wear it!” Moxxi exclaimed as she turned to head back to the bedroom, leaving a stunned Zena in her wake.

Knitting her brows together, she looked borderline confused. Her entire plan played in with her strength, her wearing the strap on and taking care of Moxxi but apparently the woman had other ideas. Walking into the bedroom, she saw the woman tightening the harness onto her waist after getting the smaller end of the toy inside of herself. The woman snapped her fingers and pointed at the bed. Zena climbed onto the bed and laid down on her back as Moxxi stared down at her.

“No, no…” she grabbed her waist and pushed her to roll over. The woman followed Moxxi’s lead and once she was on her stomach, Moxxi grabbed her hips and pulled her up onto her knees.

The white haired woman was speechless, she knew what sex position this was and this was the position that Moxxi wanted to fuck her in? “Mox…”

A hand smacked down on her ass and she squealed softly. “I love your tits but if I wanna spank you while I fuck you, I need access to this ass.” cooed the woman as she reached over and grabbed the lube. She flipped it open and poured some on the toy, using her free hand to smear it along the phallus. She held her hand up and watched lube drip from her fingers. “I put a tad bit too much on but that’ll work.” She grabbed at her hips and motioned for her to come back. “Shuffle back a bit, Sugar.” Zena did as she was instructed and inhaled sharply as she felt the toy press against herself.

“Mox…” there was a hum, “I’ve never inserted anything into myself.”

The brunette tilted her head. “Is your cherry still intact?”

“N-No, that broke several years ago. It’s from riding on Raptor’s back or stretching, dad said there’s ways it could’ve happened.”

Reaching between them, she grabbed at the bigger end and press the tip too Zena. “Alright, I’ll go in slow. Tell me to stop if it gets too much.” She saw the young woman nod before she began slowly filling her with the toy. She heard a small groan and stopped but the woman never told her to stop, so she kept filling her until the entire toy was inside of her. “Oh god, you’re very tight. Alright, relax...adjust.” She leaned down and kissed her back as she nuzzled her neck.

The 19 year old inhaled deeply, the stretch hurt but it was slowly easing up. “J-Just uh...slowly thrust?”

Nodding, Moxxi began to slowly thrust the toy inside of her. The more she thrust, the more Zena seemed to relax. “Good girl.” praised the woman as she kissed her neck. “Good girl, relax for me.” She felt Zena’s body relax so much she laid her upper body on the bed as she kept her hips raised up and still in the same position that Moxxi had put them in. She kissed her lower back and sat up on her knees as she grabbed a hold of her young girlfriend’s hips and began thrusting just a bit faster.

A soft sigh came from Zena as the other woman kept a slow steady rhythm until she was sure that her lover was completely adjusted. “Go faster.” begged the woman.

Cooing, she spanked her and began thrusting faster as she slid a hand onto her lower back. A moan leaving the both of them as she picked up pace, both ends thrusting into them faster and Moxxi’s clit might have been rubbing against the harness. She pulled Zena’s ass against her hips as she moaned her name. The younger woman pushing herself up onto her hands as she bounced into her thrusts as a hand grabbed at her hair, wrapping it twice around her hand and tugging. A shuddering half moan, half laugh leaving the woman as her hair was tugged.

The only sounds in the room were their moans and Moxxi’s hips smacking against Zena’s ass. “Kiss, I wanna kiss.” mewled out the young woman.

Wrapping an arm around her waist, she pulled her into her lap and Zena’s head tilted back to capture her lips. Their lips moving against one another, moans breaking free as Moxxi thrust harder. Zena doubled over as she reached her orgasm while moaning Moxxi’s name and her girlfriend followed half a moment shortly. She slumped against her and the two sorta just collapsed onto the bed.

Someone’s hips jerked a bit and Zena squealed. “N-No more.” Lips pressed to her neck as the other woman undid the harness and slid the end inside of Zena out slowly before taking it out of herself. She barely heard the question about what to do with it. “Just…” she waved her hand and it was dropped onto the ground.

Arms encircled her and pulled her against the other woman’s front, breasts pressing against her back as lips trailed up and down her neck. Moxxi covered them up and tucked it under their arms before brushing white hair over her lover’s shoulder and resting her face against her neck as she kept her arms wrapped around her in a loving hold. Turning head head towards her, she pecked their lips together and chuckled as she saw Zena’s eyes were closed. “Go to sleep.”

“Mox…”

“Hm?”

The woman inhaled deeply before her body relaxed. “I love you.”

Worrying her teeth into her own lower lip, she kissed her shoulder once more. “I love you too.”

Feeling the young woman relax, she came to the conclusion she must’ve drifted off to sleep. She nuzzled her face against Zena’s neck and closed her eyes as she tightened her arm around her waist, pulling her snug against her front and she let sleep take over.

The next time Moxxi woke up, it was early morning judging by the very little light coming in through the windows in the kitchen. Her arm was still wrapped around Zena’s body as the 19 year old slept peacefully but this time, she had rolled over and had her head resting against the brunette’s upper chest. Cooing softly, she brushed strands of white hair away from her young lover’s face and pressed a chaste kiss to her cheek. She heard a groan and watched as Zena shifted to roll onto her back, her head resting on the pillow and turned ever so slightly towards the brunette.

Moxxi lightly dragged her nails back and forth across the white haired woman’s upper chest, never straying lower. The 19 year old was asleep, she didn’t want to wake her up. “Stop.” muttered the younger woman. “It’s stupidly early in the morning and I will not get horny this early.” That caused a laugh to leave the older woman as she put her face into Zena’s neck.

“You didn’t even open your eyes.”

Golden eyes cracked open and looked towards the kitchen, a small groan escaping her as she turned around and nuzzled against Moxxi. “This isn’t a dream right?”

“You dream of cuddling me often?” inquired the brunette. She felt Zena nod against her. “No, Sugar. It’s not a dream.”

Inhaling deeply, Zena leaned back a bit and shifted her legs only to flinch a tiny bit. “Would explain why I hurt down there a bit.”

“It’ll ease up.” reassured the brunette. “Your first time always leaves you a little sore.” She kissed her cheek before the younger woman sat up in bed and stretching with a groan.

Sitting up, she felt some discomfort in her privates but ultimately it wasn’t that bad. “I need a shower. I smell of sex.”

Moxxi hummed and sat up to sit beside her, kissing at her shoulder and neck. “Shower sex?”

“How are you horny this early?” she laughed as arms locked around her and Moxxi shoved her onto her side.

“How are you not?! You’re way younger than me!”

Quickly rolling them over, Zena pinned the older woman to the bed and looked down at her. A giggle escaping Moxxi as she looked the younger woman up and down. Their lips met in a quick and sweet kiss before the white haired woman got off her lover and climbed off the bed. Zena entered her bathroom and turned her shower on, getting the water to run until it was a comfortable hot, she liked hot showers but not scalding skin hot, then returned to the doorway. “We can shower together.”

The other woman quickly got off the bed and followed Zena into the shower. The curtain being pulled closed once Mox was in. They both cleaned themselves and washed their hair, although in all honesty Zena loved when Moxxi offered to wash her hair for her. She almost fell back to sleep, both of them sitting in the tub as Moxxi worked her fingers through her soapy hair to make sure it was squeaky clean. She even took her time running her fingers through her hair to make sure all the suds and soap were washed free of her hair once having Zena tuck her head under the water. It was the most sweetest, non-erotic thing she loved.

Even though Moxxi offered a few more times, they did not have shower sex but Zena promised they would the next time. Breakfast and coffee were made, the 19 year old downing her cup of coffee in one go before having to pour a second. She found a shirt for Moxxi to wear, it had been a Torgue shirt she had been given a year ago that was a bit big on her but Moxxi, why was an oversized shirt on Moxxi so hot? She wore her bra and panties under it, the shirt hung off one of her shoulders and Zena had problems forming words when watching her.

It took them another hour or two to get their stuff together, Zena promising to repair the dress she ruined, and they got into the Bandit. Moxxi sitting nice and comfy in Zena’s lap, her arms wrapped loosely around the younger woman’s arms as she drove them back to the nearest traveling station to get back to Sanctuary.

They appeared in Pierce Station, Moxxi and Zena walked to the bar holding hands (Moxxi’s idea) and the brunette gave her a quick kiss before walking towards the door that lead to her apartment. “Heya Mama!” shouted Scooter making Zena instantly go rigid.

“Hey Scooter.” she smiled, waving at her son.

Scooter must’ve been cutting through to maybe go try and get something from Crazy Earl or maybe he was here to get a drink, she’s never seen Scooter drink before though. “Wait a minute…” he mused as he saw his mother go into the room in the back. “Why is mama wearing your Torgue shirt?” Zena’s cheeks instantly flushed. “Did you bang my mama?!” The red in her cheeks worsened. “Oh my god, you did!” he busted out laughing and held his hand out for a high five. She knit her brows together in confusion but gave him one. “Dude, you’re like the only one I sorta approve to bang my mama.”

“Thank you?” she asked.

“Just treat her right or you’ll get buried alive.” his face had gone from happy to threatening.

Right...like someone else Moxxi either dated or flirted with. “I-I will…” That made that famous Scooter grin return to his face. “I’m...gonna go home now.”

“Alright! See ya!”

Zafina looked up from the newspaper, which someone had started in Sanctuary to keep themselves busy, and saw Zena walking through the door with her things in tow. “You have hickies.”

“I’m aware.” she responded as her mother smirked.

“Was it good?” She saw her daughter blush. “Oh, it was good.” Zena groaned loud and buried her face in her hands as her mother busted out laughing.

_One Year Later_

“Sugar!”

“What?!”

“I need my bra!”

“Are you sure you need your bra?!”

“Zena!”

The now 20 year old Zena chuckled and moved over to where Moxxi stored her clothes, she opened the first drawer and pulled out a clean bra. She opened the bathroom door to see the brunette standing in front of the mirror toweling her hair off. “Here.”

The brunette held her hand out and the bra was placed in it. “Thank you, Sugar.”

“Kiss?”

Rolling her pale blue eyes, Moxxi lowered the towel to hang around her neck before turning to face the younger woman and pecked their lips together. “Needy.” she teased.

“For your kisses? Please, I need them as much as I need my morning coffee.”

Cooing, Moxxi ran her knuckles across Zena’s jaw line. “I know you’re not as practiced at flirting or sweet talking as I am but that was pretty good.” The white haired woman winked at her and she giggled.

Eight months ago, Moxxi had approached Zena and asked her if she’d move in. Zafina was as against it as Zena thought her mother would be, so with her parents’ help and Scooter’s, they moved Zena’s stuff over into Moxxi’s apartment. It was a two bedroom, two and a half bathroom apartment and since Moxxi didn’t use the second room, she let Zena turn it into a workshop. Raptor still stayed in his home beside where Zena used to live, well not it was Zafina’s home, but since it was right by the bar there was no reason moving his home.

There was a knocking coming from the front door and she sighed. “I got it, you get dressed.” she stated spanking Moxxi once she turned around, a yelp coming from the woman before she laughed.

Unlocking the door, Zena cracked it to see Fiona and Rhys, she had met them briefly when she stumbled upon them with Athena while she was out hunting. That was also the day that she somehow got into a fight with Brick and Mordecai to help protect Athena, Fiona having helped as well, and the two men still weren’t allowed in the bar for another two weeks cause when Zena comes back to Sanctuary with a nearly broken arm, a small concussion, and several cuts caused by glass or plants, Moxxi gets mad and wants to know who caused it. “Uh...Zena?” asked Fiona, unsure if that was her name.

“Yeah.” she answered knitting her brows together. “What are you two doing here? If you’re looking for Athena, she’s living with Janey somewhere. They don’t live on Sanctuary.”

“N-No. We’re uh...looking for Moxxi.” stated Rhys.

Okay what? “Moxxi is currently indisposed at the moment.”

The two swore and looked at each other. Zena looked down and saw a familiar hat in Fiona’s hand. “Why do you have Scooter’s hat?” she quickly asked, sounding slightly defensive and angry.

“You knew Scooter?”

Scoffing, she had to try not to snatch the hat away. “I’m dating Scooter’s mother. You’re in her bar, you’re looking for her.”

Their faces instantly went pale. “Wait... Moxxi is his mother?” asked Rhys. “Who’s Ellie?”

“His sister.”

Fiona placed a hand to her face and inhaled deeply before sighing. “Alright look, we didn’t know Moxxi was his mother. I mean he referred to her as Moxxi…” She held the hat out and Zena carefully took it. “Remember what were working on?”

“The...Gortys Project?” she vaguely remembered a cute little robot trying to defend Athena, Fiona, and even herself when that woman Valery showed up.

The two nodded. “We had to go to Hyperion, one of Gortys’ parts were up there and we needed a Spaceship. Springs made it for us but Scooter wanted to go.” informed Rhys.

Wait...was was this going? “Something went wrong, Scooter said we had to go out and fix it so I went with him.” added Fiona as Zena looked at her with wide eyes. “He said we had to be quick about it and detach the rockets from the ship because they were in danger of exploding, he warned me that we had to do it quick otherwise the hatch that was opening and closing would clamp down on us and we’d be stuck. I managed to do mine quickly but....” No, no no...please no. “He wasn’t fast enough and got his hand clamped inside the stabilizer console. I couldn’t get him out. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get him out. He told me that if I didn’t eject the rocket, we’d all die…” 

“What are you saying?” she spoke, her voice breaking a bit. She knew what they were saying.

“I had to eject the rocket with him on it. I traded hats so I could give it to Moxxi or Ellie. He told me to tell them that he did some awesome shit. He rode the rocket all the back down towards Pandora and ultimately...”

The loud explosion they heard a few weeks ago but never bothered to investigate. Oh god no…Zena grit her teeth together. She knew there was no way that Scooter could’ve survived it, no matter how awesome he was. An explosion was an explosion. “You’re telling me, my girlfriend’s...son…” She quickly wiped at her own cheek once feeling wetness. She was crying, that much was obvious.

“Sugar?” asked a voice making Zena inhale sharply and looked at the two with large watery eyes. Moxxi was behind Zena, sounding worried. 

“You two sit, I’ll be back.” she spoke making them nod as Zena shut the door and pressed her forehead too it.

The brunette approached her, she was fully dressed now minus the fishnets and holster. “What’s wrong?” whispered the brunette once seeing she saw she was close to letting tears free.

Clearing her throat, she rubbed at her eyes quickly with the hand that wasn’t holding Scooter’s hat. “I need you to sit…”

Hands swatted at hers. “What’s. Wrong?” she sounded firm.

Zena stared at her for a moment before sighing. She held the hat out and Moxxi looked down. Pale blue eyes narrowed in confusion as they stared at Scooter’s hat but there must’ve been a switch that went off in her head cause she heard the sharp inhale, Moxxi tilted her head back and looked at Zena. “Mox…”

“W-Why do you have...w-why were you c-crying...where’s my boy?” she managed, her voice wavering as she took the hat in her hands, the younger woman noticed her hands were shaking.

“Moxxi.” Zena whispered.

“Where’s my boy, Zena?!” she asked desperately as if Zena would tell her the opposite of what she could possibly be thinking.

The 20 year old shook her head and grabbed hold of Moxxi’s shoulders. “He’s...gone.” A sob ripped it self from Moxxi’s throat.

A hand pressed against the woman’s chest. “No.” she whispered.

“The two that I met through Athena said...he’s gone. He died saving them.” Why did she add that? She knew there was nothing she could do to make this feeling leave the woman, maybe it was a way to save Fiona and Rhys’ butts or...to make Scooter sound like a hero like he always wanted to be.

“H-How do they know for sure?! What if he’s still…”

“The explosion we heard.” Moxxi’s eyes widened in either terror or shock...maybe both. “He was on the rocket. He was stuck. They couldn’t free him, ultimately Scooter ordered Fiona to detach the rocket even though he knew it meant his death.”

Moxxi’s forehead pressed against Zena’s upper chest the moment a sob ripped itself from the woman’s throat. She had never heard Moxxi cry but to be honest, this was different than a normal everyday incident. Scooter was Moxxi’s kid, the woman carried him for nine months and birthed him, loved him. Her knees gave out but Zena quickly grabbed a hold of her, she carefully lifted her up into her arms and carried her to their bedroom.

“I-I need to o-open…”

“No you don’t.” firmly spoke Zena as she sat Moxxi on the bed. “I will open the bar, you will stay here.”

“You were going hunting.”

Hands grabbed Moxxi’s tear stained face. “You’re more important than hunting.” she informed. “I will open the bar, I will do everything, you stay here.” She pressed a kiss to Moxxi’s forehead before pressing a gently and quick kiss to her lips, tasting the salt of her tears. “Okay?” The woman looked down at the hat in her hands. “If you need me, come get me.”

Moxxi just pressed a small kiss to her cheek and she took that as an alright. She walked into the living room and nearly had her own meltdown, she almost hyperventilated as tears slid down her cheeks but she managed to keep herself quiet and calm. She didn’t want Moxxi to think she couldn’t handle the bar, she loved Scooter. Not like Moxxi loved him but Scooter had become one of her greatest friends, aside from Dante, as she grew up. He knew from New Haven, and helped Zed when it came to certain things but Sanctuary is where she got to know him better and became friends with him, hell he apparently approved of her dating Moxxi and he never approved of people dating Moxxi.

“Okay...okay…” she breathed before wiping at her face and leaving the apartment, shutting the door behind her. She walked over to the bar to see Fiona and Rhys standing there.

“Are you…”

“No. I’m not okay.” she interrupted. “And she’s not okay.”

The two remained quiet as Zena checked the glasses real quick, she had cleaned them last night but she had to be sure. “Is there anything we can do?”

“Yes. Go to the house next door, you’ll see an armored skag sleeping outside. Tell my mother I need her.” Zena answered.

“Uh..,”

“Raptor won’t bite.” she stated.

Fiona ended up going to get Zafina as Zena opened the bar, opening up both entrances and turning the slot machines on. There was a part of her that wanted to go out to the area of the explosion and see it, what if Scooter’s body was there? Shaking her head, she inhaled deeply and moved back behind the counter as people started filing in, Zafina shoved someone out of the way as she ran into the bar, she nearly plowed over poor Rhys. The older woman stared at her daughter, neither saying anything, before she leapt over the counter and got to taking drink orders.

Moxxi called on her about four times, the woman was just curled up in bed and was either hungry or thirsty but Zena did as she needed. Each time before she left, she gave Moxxi a small kiss and returned to the bar. Was it weird that she expected Moxxi to ask for sex? They’ve had loads of angry sex, they’d argue about something and eventually one of them would kiss the other and that’d lead to someone being fucked with a strap on. This was different then arguing with one another, she knew that, but there was that small part of her brain that told her to reject Moxxi if she asked for sex.

Ultimately, the day finished and she cleaned everything up with her mother’s help. Fiona and Rhys had left hours ago, Lilith had been informed as did everyone else that was of importance in Sanctuary. She closed up the bar once her mother left and retreated back to the bedroom. The woman was just laying there and staring at the ceiling as Zena sat on the side of the bed. “Hey.” she whispered as Moxxi looked over at her. She quickly sat up and wrapped her arms around the white haired woman’s neck to pull her close.

“I love you.” whispered the older woman.

“I know that. I love you too.” repeated Zena as she wrapped her arms around her waist and rubbed at her back.

“I don’t remember the last time I told Scooter that.”

“He knew you loved him, Mox. Even if you both didn’t tell each other daily, you both knew you loved one another.” reassured the 20 year old as she pressed a kiss to her jaw.

A hand moved to Zena’s cheek and a thumb rubbed against her lower lip. “I heard you, when you left the bedroom the first time.” Fuck. “I know you cared for my sweet dumb boy and...thank you for taking charge of the bar today.”

Zena kicked her boots off and shifted further onto the bed, pulling Moxxi into her lap and just hugging her. “Anything for you.” It was true, she’d murder someone if Moxxi wanted her too. Moxxi was that piece missing from the puzzle that was Zena’s life and when Moxxi agreed to be her girlfriend/lover, it was like the puzzle was made whole. “How about some pizza, a movie, and cuddle time?”

A kiss pressed to her forehead and the younger woman closed her eyes as a small smile formed on her face. “I would adore that.”

Pizza, a movie, and cuddle time it was then. They’d talk about Scooter more in the morning, they’d figure out a way to break it to Ellie, and Zena would help Moxxi in anyway possible, no matter the costs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4 will be posted hopefully by the end of the month or just before Borderlands 3 comes out (September 13th), it'll take place during the Fight for Sanctuary DLC but I won't have Zena doing everything you do in the DLC but I got some plans for what she'll be doing.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted this to be up a week ago but ya know how it goes. 1: I got distracted by other stuff and 2: I wasn't sure where to go until now lol
> 
> This chapter has SPOILERS for the Borderlands 2 DLC; Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary, granted it didn't follow it that much but the ending of this chapter did so the way it ends is the way the DLC ends.
> 
> Also I apologize for any spelling errors, it's late here and I could easily re-read this about eight times and still miss something spelled wrong lol. :) I do hope you all enjoy though.

_Three months later_

Curtains were pulled back as Moxxi was moving through the bedroom, the sun shining directly onto the bed and she heard a small groan. Looking over, she saw saw Zena press her face against the pillow before rolling over so her bare back faced her and the sun beat against her skin, warming it. She approached the bed and pressed a kiss to her cheek and brushed the hair out of her face, usually Zena would wake up around this time with her but she knew the younger woman didn’t get to be till almost two in the morning. She had been out hunting some creature for Hammerlock and Moxxi briefly woke to Zena undressing in the bathroom, tossing what looked like blood stained clothes and showered. She knew that when she woke up this morning, Zena was pressed eagerly against her back and smelling of vanilla.

“Sugar.” A sleepy hum was the response she got. “I’m going to go get ready for the day, do you want anything to eat?”

“What time is it?” rasped out the 20 year old.

Moxxi looked towards the alarm clock on the nightstand. “Nearly eight.” answered the brunette as she lightly ran her nails up and down her arm, not pressing hard enough to leave marks but enough that it sorta tickled.

Zena inhaled deeply and tilted her head to look at her lover through narrowed eyes, her blinking slow and almost cat like. “Can I sleep a bit more?”

She nodded and pressed a kiss on her forehead. “Of course, you sleep as much as you need too. I know you must be tired, you left around nine in the morning yesterday and didn’t return until...what? Sometime after midnight?”

“I got in the shower at around twelve-thirty, out by one.” Her eyes drifted closed as she relaxed. “Just a bit longer. I have a meeting...with Fiona today.”

The older woman grabbed the blanket and tugged it up to cover her up better. “Yes I know, at around noon. I’ll check on you in a few hours. Okay?” A hum was the only response she got.

Standing up from the bed, the woman moved to get ready for the day. Dressing in her usual fashion, made herself something quick to eat with a cup of coffee and reapplied her makeup. She readjusted her hat before leaving the apartment and shutting the door, she didn’t bother locking it cause only a few people ever went into the apartment and none of them just walked in without permission. She opened up both entrances, switched on the light for the Moxxxi’s sign outside, turned the slot machines on, and made her way to the back of the bar to start cleaning the cups she didn’t finish last night. She knew Zena could take care of herself, she knew the 20 year old had been with Zer0 but that didn’t stop the woman from feeling nervous when her lover was gone for so long; gone for around 15 hours.

Turning the cup in her hand, she inspected it to look for any specs of dirt when she saw Zafina coming towards her. She didn’t frown at the sight of the woman but instead gave a small smile. “Your usual?”

The older white haired woman seemed to be internally debating. “Water, I have a headache right now. Alcohol won’t go well with that.” she stated as she sat down on a stool in front of the bar. “Where’s my kid?”

“Sleeping still.” informed Moxxi as she filled a glass with water. “Did she go see her father when she got back? I saw her clothes…”

“Zed cleared her. She has a few scratches and I think he said one or two of her ribs on her left side are bruised but she’s fine. The blood on her clothes was from the creature she and Zer0 hunted.” reassured the woman as she took the glass of water and sipped at it.

The sigh of relief that left Moxxi wasn’t unnoticed but Zafina didn’t bring it up. She had come to terms with the fact that her daughter was in love with Moxxi but made it clear that if she ever broke the girl’s heart, there would be hell to pay. She ran her thumb across the rim of the cup and stared at Moxxi for a solid minute before looking down. “Did she get the creature at least?”

“Yes she did.” interrupted Sir Hammerlock. “According to Zer0, she got a clean kill...after she fell like twelve feet.”

Moxxi’s eyes widened and she looked at Zafina before looking towards the door to their home. “She’s fine!” quickly spoke the older woman. “It’s how she got her ribs bruised! She’s fine, Moxxi!”

The brunette just stared at the white haired woman. “She could have sustained a head injury and…”

The woman waved her hand to cut her off. “Mox, I checked everything I needed to for that. She doesn’t have a head injury, she landed on her side, according to her, she protected her head when she fell.” Moxxi went to say something but Zafina cut her off. “I’m better than my ex at this stuff, Mox. She’s. Fine.” She did see the other woman look towards the door before seeming to relax a little bit. 

Several hours passed, Moxxi serving everyone either drinks or food as Zafina took her pizza and fourth glass of water to go sit down at a booth. Zafina chatted with Salvador as he was making his way through when Moxxi ducked out from behind the bar and went into the apartment at about 11:30am. She expected to wake Zena up but when she came to their bedroom, she found the bed empty and made up. Knitting her brows together, she walked towards the other room to see the door open and Zena was sitting at her table. Since moving to Moxxi’s, Zena was given the spare bedroom as a workshop.

“Sugar.”

“Mm…” hummed Zena looked back at her. “Hey Mox.”

The brunette walked over and ran a hand through white hair. “I thought I had to wake you up?” she inquired as she slid her hands across Zena’s cheeks before gently cupping her jaw and tilting her head back against her chest, her thumb gently stroking at the right side of her jawline.

Golden eyes stared at her and blinked slowly. “I woke up half an hour ago. I didn’t want to bother you.”

That statement made Moxxi look almost appalled. “Bother me?” she asked as Zena just stared at her. “Darling, you know that I’m never bothered by you.”

Inhaling deeply as she closed her eyes, just keeping her head rested against the woman’s rather ample bosom. “I know, I just wanted to wake up a bit.”

Moxxi hummed and leaned down, bushing their lips together before pressing them firmly to Zena’s. It was awkward, what kiss wouldn’t be awkward when upside down, but Zena melted against her. She knew she had a certain effect on people, hell it was one of Moxxi’s many talents but she never got old of how Zena reacted. She felt a hand slide across her own cheek before burying itself in her hair as the older woman tilted her head to deepen the kiss. Kissing Moxxi was one of Zena’s favorite things but she knew the woman needed to get back to work, so she forced herself to pull away but nipped at her lips before breaking the kiss.

“I love kissing you but I gotta get ready for my meeting with Fiona.” she cooed making Moxxi kiss her forehead and nod.

“See you in the bar, I’ll get some pizza ready for you.”

The 20 year old smiled as Moxxi winked at her before leaving the room. She lifted up a piece of paper that she had covering what she had been working on, a black ring band that had an empty spot for a gem. She had just finished it before she heard Moxxi enter the room, it was fitted perfectly to the older woman’s ring finger due to Ellie getting her mother’s ring size for the young woman. She opened up the safe she had under the table and took out the dark wood box she had created to hold the ring and slid the band into the cushion to be held upright. She snapped the box closed and sat it on the top shelf of her safe before closing it and leaving the room.

Zena dressed in a pair of black jeans with a top that actually covered her stomach unlike her other tops and zipped it up, like her other tops they no longer had sleeves. She tucked the zipper out of sight and slid on her black boots, tying them up and quickly tied her hair back into a rather messy bun. She applied some of the black eye shadow Moxxi had given to her and followed it up with eye liner, she never did a lot of makeup when she wore it. Leaving the apartment, she shut the door behind her as she fashioned the belt she was wearing and shifted her hands down to put the strap connected to her holster around her thigh; Rubi sat in the holster at the moment. As she walked further into the bar, she saw Fiona enter and looked at the clock on the wall to see Fiona was ten minutes early.

Motioning to a booth, the two of them sat down as Moxxi walked over. She sat down the pizza and a glass of water for her. “Anything to drink for you?” she inquired as Fiona looked at her.

“Uh...whiskey?”

The brunette nodded and moved to get her a glass of whiskey as Zena opened the box of pizza. “Skag bacon pizza, if you want some you can.” the younger woman stated as she lifted a piece up to her mouth.

Fiona looked at the pizza, it was loaded with skag bacon and cheese to the point she noticed when Zena took a piece, the cheese stretched. Moxxi sat the whiskey down and gently ran her knuckles across her lover’s cheek making her hum in content as she chewed her food. Moxxi left the two to their own devices as she returned to the bar. “I’ll have some in a sec…” she reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a small velvet like bag, golden eyes lighting up at the sight of it. “I got what you asked. Do you have the rest of the money I need?”

Zena sat her piece of pizza down and quickly used a napkin to clean her hands before pulling out a roll of cash. “A thousand right?” she asked, the brunette nodded. She sat the money down and passed it as the bag was passed to her. She made sure Moxxi wasn’t nearby before opening the bag and tilting it so a ruby fell into the palm of her hand, it was what she planned on having placed in the open spot on the ring band she made.

Even though the woman before her was a Vault Hunter now, she still had her contacts from her con woman days. Fiona, the badass that she was, had imported the ruby for her from some other world and looking at it now, well it was the best $1,000 she ever spent. The ring she was making was an engagement ring, she planned on at some point asking Moxxi the obvious question but she didn’t know how yet. She dropped the ruby back into the back and closed it, pushing it into the left pocket of her jeans and zipped it closed, it was Tina’s idea for the zippers and she loved the idea because she kept losing arrowheads at one point.

“Pizza.” she chuckled picking up her bitten slice. With a small laugh of her own, the woman shrugged and picked up a piece of her own.

Fiona helped her devour her pizza before ultimately having to leave and Moxxi, as much as she hated to admit it, sorta liked tasting pizza when she kissed Zena afterwards. The young woman was standing behind the bar cleaning glasses for her as the brunette conversed with patrons or gave them their drinks. She was crouched behind the counter and was setting the glasses upside down and making the lines of glasses straight.

“Heya Mox, where’s the kid?” asked Mordecai. The brunette just motioned beside her as Zena peaked up over the counter. “Lilith needs ya for a meeting.”

“Right, right.” she stared standing up and setting the cloth down. She kissed Moxxi’s cheek and leaped over the counter. “See ya in a bit.”

Since Scooter’s death and since Ellie moved to Sanctuary, Lilith had Zena apart of what the young woman would call a council; Lilith, Tannis, Mordecai, Ellie, and now Zena. Entering the Crimson Raider HQ, she saw her bow sitting on the table on the first floor and at first wondered how or why it was here. She picked it up and saw a folded note beside it, she quickly opened it and saw it was written by Zed. When she visited the clinic when she got back to Sanctuary, she was so tired; all she wanted at that time was to shower and cuddle with Moxxi so she left her bow and quiver in the clinic. It made its way to the HQ cause Zed left it there since he knew Zena would eventually make her way there later in the day.

She followed Mordecai upstairs as she fashioned her quiver onto her back, hooking the strap closed in between her breasts and lightly tightening the strap so it fit snug. “Hey hot stuff.” said Ellie making Zena roll her eyes with a smile before high fiving Sanctuary’s mechanic. Even before dating Moxxi, the two had been friends...hell Zena still raided Ellie’s junkyard for items to make projects with.

“Hey El.” she responded as Lilith walked up to the table.

“How hard would it be to tame Skags?” inquired the Siren.

That caused an eyebrow to raise, Zena’s black brow contrasting against her hair; she never did figure out why her mother and her had black eyebrows and white hair...maybe something to do with Zafina’s parents. “Tame Skags?”

“You have Raptor…”

“I got him as a wounded pup. It’s not like I went to Lynchwood and somehow tamed an Armored Skag, Lil.” she quickly informed.

Lilith rubbed at the back of her head and muttered to herself for a moment. “Do you think there’s a possibility that we could tame skags?”

Thinking about it, what Lilith was proposing probably wasn’t impossible, just difficult. Raptor had been wounded, stuck in a bear trap when she found him. She nursed him back to health and basically when she tried to release him, he came running back to her and became hers. “I mean there’s a chance that yes, you can tame Skags but it’d be hard. Especially if you’re going for full grown ones, but I imprinted with Raptor. I ended up becoming his mother.”

“But is it…”

“Theoretically I suppose it could be possible but I don’t know how to tame an adult Skag and I don’t have the heart to steal a pup from its family.” she sighed.

Lilith hummed and rubbed at the back of her neck. “Alright, I’ll drop it for now.”

Was Zena made for this sorta stuff? No, not really. Why was she pulled into this sort of duty on just Moxxi’s word? Sure her lover thought she was suited for this sort of duty but in all honesty she thought maybe it was Moxxi’s silent way of keeping the young woman confined to Sanctuary and not getting hurt. Moxxi meant well but she could take care of herself.

Tannis decided now was probably the perfect time to interject as Lilith turned away and looked at what was on the other wall. “I do not understand why we haven’t left Pandora yet. We are nowhere closer to finding those vaults! This map is the most important scientific discovery in all of human history and Mordecai is using it as a coaster!”

Looking at the Vault Key, Zena had to stop herself from snorting with laughter cause the sniper was indeed using the key as a coaster for his can of soda. “Does that matter? We don’t even know which planets these are yet.” spoke Mordecai before grabbing his soda and opening it. “I don’t like flyin blind.”

A hologram of Sanctuary appeared with several red spots on it. “Sanctuary’s holding together using spit and wishful thinking. She’s barely stayin’ in the air, let alone leavin’ the planet.” A light behind Ellie fell and actually caused Zena to jump at the sound.

Mordecai put his can back in the Vault Key. “Well, we gotta do somethin’. People are talking about disbanding the Raiders, sayin’ Pandora don’t need us now that Jack’s gone. We need a Leader.”

The sight of Lilith sighing was almost visible to Zena. “She don’t want the job, man. And can you blame her? Sometimes when you’re the one callin’ the shots, people get hurt.” Ellie spoke, defending Lilith.

Mordecai crossed his arms over his chest and spoke. “Not makin’ a choice is still a choice.” 

“So, then: we have no plan, no working ship, no leader, and A SODA ON THE VAULT KEY!” Tannis almost sounded like she was going to freak out worse than she already was.

Ellie sighed and looked at Lilith. “Lil. We need to make a call. What do you think?”

As Lilith turned around the entire place shook, Zena managing to steady herself on the table. “Ellie?!” Lilith managed to get out.

The hologram showed ships advancing on Sanctuary and Zena looked towards the balcony. “That ain’t the engines, Lil!”

Zena ran after Mordecai as he ran out onto the balcony, followed by Lilith and Ellie. “This is Lilith. Sanctuary is under attack. All citizens, evacuate the city immediately!” Zena leapt over the railing, ran down the bit of roof and jumped from it. “ZENA!”

The 20 year old barely managed to catch her balance before sprinting away from the Crimson Raider HQ. A man in armor landed directly in front of her and she skidded to a stop as he raised his gun. Before he could pull the trigger, Raptor’s mouth closed around his head and she shook the man’s body so hard he looked almost like a rag doll, the creature released the body from his mouth and it slammed into the nearest wall. “Raptor!” she gasped out rubbing at his head. “Where’s mom?!”

“Here!” shouted Zafina running at her. “Take this!” She caught the bag she tossed at her.

“Take Raptor, fast travel somewhere! I gotta get Moxxi!” she shouted as she turned and took off running towards the bar.

As she rounded a corner, Moxxi slammed directly into her and Zena wrapped her arms around her as she kissed at her face. “I grabbed what I could from your workshop but I wasn’t sure what to grab and I had to get other stuff…”

“Calm down. Calm down.” Zena whispered as she cupped Moxxi’s face. “You’re fine. Go to the fast travel point, go somewhere. I’ll be right there.”

“W-Where?” Moxxi sounded actually scared and Zena heard gunfire near them making her quickly shield the woman in case someone fired towards them.

Kissing Moxxi’s forehead, she tilted her head back and pecked their lips together. “Try and make it too my hunting platform. The one where you and I had sex for the first time. I need to quickly grab one more thing”

The woman nodded and kissed her quickly before they broke apart and ran opposite directions. She burst through the door and ran for her workshop, she fell in front of her safe and quickly input the code before throwing it open. The second her hand wrapped around the box, she knit her brows together as a purple glow surrounded her. “N-No!” she shouted just before she disappeared from her workshop. Lilith must’ve used her Siren abilities to get whoever else was in Sanctuary, out.

Zena reappeared and fell about eight feet, her bruised side slamming down on the sand and she groaned. A small wheeze leaving her as she rolled over, her right hand instantly grabbing at her left side as she eased herself onto her back. Her eyes stared up at the sky and she inhaled deeply before relaxing as her fingers dug into her side a bit. “Zena! Are you okay?!” shouted Lilith’s voice over her ECHO.

“No. Not really. I landed on my bad side. Why did your powers teleport me eight feet up in the air?” she managed through clenched teeth.

“I’m sorry, Killer. I don’t know. I’ll send you a waypoint on your ECHO for us to meet up. Salvador and Zer0 are working on getting an area for us to regroup and possibly live at until we figure out what to do with Sanctuary.”

Forcing herself up onto her feet, Zena brushed sand off her pants and top. She opened her left hand and saw the box sitting in her hand, she thumbed it open and saw the sunlight glittering off the black band. She released a small sigh of relief and snapped it closed before shifting her backpack to put the box away safely before pulling the bag out of her pocket and putting it in the same place as the box. Zipping it closed, she shifted it onto her back and shifted it slightly so she could have easy access to her arrows as she shifted her bow; grateful she had left it on her back during the meeting otherwise she would’ve been completely defenseless. She pulled one arrow free of the quiver and looked around her. Where exactly was she anyways?

Zena pulled her ECHO device out and looked at it, flicking it on and going to the map section of her device. “The Backburner?” she spoke aloud. She had never been in this area before. “Okay, okay...where’s the waypoint?” she zoomed the map out and saw where it was located, it looked to be in the middle of an area with walls around it. Walls would prove useful against whoever the asshole was that attacked Sanctuary.

Hooking her ECHO device back to her belt, she made her way in the direction of the waypoint. She wanted nothing more than to sit down and place something hot or cold to her ribs and just relax. She ran a hand through her hair and looked around at the dead bodies of psychos and Goliaths. She could tell it was either Salvador or Maya’s handiwork and they were ahead of her after all. She bent down, cringing a little as her ribs ached, and she undid the psycho’s mask before pulling it off. She was gonna need to start stocking up on Psycho masks again if she couldn’t get back to Sanctuary, unless her mother packed those but to be honest she really hasn’t had time to go through her bag.

A psycho ran around a building and she sighed heavily. “Oh come on!” He saw or heard her (probably both) and ran at her swinging his axe. She notched her arrow and drew it back, her teeth gritting together as a shock of pain went through her left side once lifting her left arm to hold her bow up. She aimed her arrow and released it, thankfully the pain didn’t mess up her aim and it struck him right in the right eye. His axe being flung towards her and just managing to miss her by mere inches before it managed to stab into the wood of the shack beside her. “I can’t wait to get off this planet. Give me somewhere that’s not full of blood thirsty assholes and creatures anyday.”

Zena ripped the arrow out of the Psycho’s eye before wiping it off on his pants. She grabbed the axe out of the wood and twirled it before making her way towards the waypoint. She entered into the walled off area, having to slide herself through a gap in the fence and she saw Maya holding someone at gunpoint. She jogged up the stairs and saw Zer0 also aiming his gun at what looked like a bandit.

Knitting her brows together, she realized who the man was. “Vaughn?” she asked making him look at her, pushing his glasses up.

“Wait I remember you! You helped Fiona fight those two Vault Hunters to protect Athena!” he laughed. “Uh...your name started with a Z.”

“Zena.”

He snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “It’s good to see you! You a Vault Hunter too?”

“We need this place.” she said walking by him and setting her stuff down, dropping her bow on the table before easing herself into the seat. “Don’t fight it, just do it. You might be weirdly buff but I’m stronger than you.”

Vaughn let out a nervous laugh. “You can use it my dudes! J-Just don’t hurt me.”

She let out a small chuckle before straightening herself slightly. Maya approached her as Zer0 ran to get the three firewall relays up and running. “You okay?” She shook her head as she inhaled deeply.

“I need dad...or mom. I need an adult.”

“You’re an adult.”

“I need a more adultier adult.” The Siren laughed a little at the 20 year old’s statement. “I think I bruised another rib or maybe one of them broke when I fell.”

A bright light made Zena flinch and the bluenette turn to see Liltih bent over panting a bit with Ellie. “Sup killers. Good work finding a camp. Guess this’ll be our home while we figure out how to take back Sanctuary.”

“Uh this is MY camp?” interjected Vaughn.

Ellie pulled her shotgun out and cocked it. “Hey Lil, step back if you don’t wanna get any bandit on ya.”

“Whoa, whoa!” said the 20 year old. “I sort of know him! Don’t kill him.”

“Yeah! We can share! Hey wanna take a spin in my lucky underwear?” added the ex-Hyperion.

Face-palming, Zena shook her head cause she knew where this was going. “I’m listening.” Ellie sounded so intrigued, like Moxxi did when she found Zena naked or Zena made suggestions.

Lilith rolled her eyes as Vaughn and Ellie walked away. “I’m gonna teleport back to Sanctuary and try to take Hector out. Maybe there’s still time to fix this.” Lilith disappeared but as quickly as she left, she returned and was coughing. “Not gonna happen. I can’t get to him. Sanctuary’s flooded with that gas. Tannis, can you...I dunno, whip us up an antidote?”

The mention of Tannis made Zena look around. She knew they were missing someone, where was she? “Of course.” spoke the woman’s voice over their ECHO devices. “I will first need to discover the nature of these mutations. Send me some plant genitalia. I believe they are called ‘flowers’ at reading level.”

“What she said. Lets get it done.” ordered the red headed siren.

“Uh. Lil.” The woman turned to face Maya and Zena. “Z’s not going anywhere.”

The woman walked over and crouched in front of her. “What happened?”

“When I was teleported and dropped several feet, I landed on my bad sad. Dad said I had two bruised ribs but the pain is worse since I fell.” answered the white haired woman as Lilith pushed the top up to expose her left side, cringing at the discoloration. It looked mostly dark red but with some red here and there.

Tugging the top down, the siren looked at her. “Yeah you’re not going anywhere until I find your parents. I want Zed or Zafina to look at that. Maya go with Zer0, I’ll contact the others and see if they can get any flowers.”

Maya nodded and ran towards Salvador as Zena sank down a bit in her chair. This position wouldn’t do however, she forced herself up out of the chair while grabbing her bow and bag. She could hear Lilith contacting Salvador, Axton, Gaige, and probably Krieg, as she made her way down the stairs until she reached the bottom and looked around. In the area beside her, she saw a couch and instantly went for it. She let her things fall to the floor and lowered herself onto the couch as she ran her fingers across her side, flinching at the light contact.

After a while she most’ve dozed off cause the next time she opened her eyes, she screamed and fell off the couch as Raptor quickly backed up. “Son of a bitch!” she hissed as she grabbed at her left side, having once again...landed on it. “Raptor, I love you boy but personal space!” That was when she paused and looked up at the Skag. “Raptor? RAPTOR!” She wrapped her arms around his head and hugged him as he nuzzled against her.

“Why are you on the floor?” asked Zed as he came over with Zafina.

“Raptor scared me.” she answered before moving from her loyal companion and hugging her father as Zafina rubbed at her head.

Kissing her daughter’s temple, she brushed the hair away from her face and sighed. “Lemme see your side. Now, before your girlfriend comes down here and freaks out on me.”

The mention of Moxxi almost made Zena just walk away but she listened and hoisted her top up to below her breasts as Zafina turned her lightly to look. “Oh sweetie, this is gonna hurt like a bitch.” Zena knew that and just nodded. Fingers pressed into her side and she inhaled deeply as pain shot through her entire side but her mother needed to feel her ribs and see if anything felt broken. “Nothing feels broken…” Her fingers pressed deeper if that was even possible. “Zed, get me some insta-healths. I know we wanted it to heal naturally but she won’t be able to function without some pain management.”

“So…” he started.

“She either worsened one of them or she bruised a third.” Her fingers slid below the two she knew was bruised and the second she touched where the rib was, her daughter recoiled. “She bruised another.

Zed nodded and went over to where his clinic was being set up and had an Insta-Health machines in. “What did you mean before Mox freaks out on you?”

“When Hammerlock let it slip that you fell twelve feet, she nearly had a panic attack.” informed the older woman. 

Zena flinched a little, she had meant to tell Moxxi that herself but to be honest she was tired by the time she got back and didn’t think of it when she woke up. Zed returned with a few syringes of the Insta-Health, it didn’t heal everything right away so she wasn’t entirely sure why it was called that, and Zafina took one. The bit the cap off the needle and pressed it to Zena’s side before pushing the plunger down, injecting the medicine into her.

Moxxi came walking towards the area and stopped as she saw Zena standing there as Zafina removed the needle from her side. “Sugar!” she ran at her, wrapping her arms around her neck as the 20 year old wrapped her arms around her waist. “When you didn’t show up, I got worried and…” she trailed off before leaning back and rub the knuckles of her right hand gently across her jawline as she stared at her. Pulling Moxxi’s head close, she pressed a kiss to her forehead and flinched a little as the older woman slipped her arms around her torso and lightly squeezed against the bruise.

The Backburner was obviously different than the floating city of Sanctuary. Before Sanctuary became that floating city in the sky, Raptor had a ton of room to run away outside the city where he and Zena would play. What exactly did she play with her skag? Usually just fetch but for Zena to do that with Raptor now, she needed something suitable for the skag to pick up in his mouth. She was sitting on the edge of the platform the bar that Moxxi now made her own as she went through her bag that her mother quickly packed for her.

“Your bag that I did is over here with me.” spoke the brunette.

“Okay. I just need to go through what mom packed up.” she stated as she pulled stuff out. It was mostly spare clothes, some items from the workshop she used in her old room when she wanted to make stuff for Moxxi without the woman realizing, a spare quiver, and spare elemental arrows. She undid the belt of her quiver and shrugged it off to set it beside the bag as she took out some arrows and replaced them with elementals; choosing incendiary and corrosive only.

She zipped her bag up and passed it to Moxxi before taking the bag Moxxi packed for her. Like Zafina, it was spare clothes and items from her workshop. The older woman chuckled at Zena’s reaction when seeing something. “You think I’d leave Rubi?” she inquired. “Or your Moxxi gun collection?”

Inside was Rubi, Moxxi’s Good Touch, Moxxi’s Kitten gun that she got during the Torgue competition, and Hail. The others were in her Highlands Hunting Platform, so least she could go grab those if she couldn’t get back to Sanctuary. “You’re the best.” she cooed leaning over the counter to peck their lips together.

Purring, she returned the peck before stepping back and winking at Zena. “I know.”

“Cocky.” she chuckled as she moved away from the bar, her lover laughing.

When Maya and Zer0 returned with the flowers, Zena told Lilith that she was going out hunting for a bit; whether that was human or creature hunting, nobody knew. Raptor followed her eagerly, he loved being able to run around and possibly kill Psychos. He was running ahead of her as she walked out of the tunnel, she really should’ve gotten a Bandit Technical but in all honesty she knew Raptor wouldn’t have fun in the technical. She whistled and the armored skag looks back at her curiously, his head tilting. She ran over to him and grabbed a hold of his saddle before hoisting herself up onto his back, grateful that her mother put it on before leaving Sanctuary.

The skag ran around happily, chasing after bandit technicals. Skags weirdly liked chasing cars but at least Raptor was big enough not to get truly hurt by the car. It did give Zena easier access to shooting the bandits in the car, upon shooting the driver; the technical wheeled towards her and Raptor quickly ran out of the way. She lifted herself up onto the saddle before leaping from him and grabbing a hold of the top bar, slipping in quickly and pressing down hard on the break making it skid to a stop. Raptor slid to a stop beside the car and she rose a brow at the sight of a dead bandit in his mouth.

“Put him down, you don’t know where he’s been.” she stated making him open his mouth and the body thump onto the ground. She hoisted herself out of the technical and landed beside it. “Turn for me.” He turned to show her his side and she opened the satchel on the right side of the saddle. She reached in and pulled out a leather roll, untying it she rolled it out to show a bunch of tools; she always carried it in Raptor’s saddle in case she came across something in Ellie’s Junkyard that needed to be removed.

She crouched in front of the left front tire and got to undoing it, pocketing the lug nuts that came off. She rolled it off to the side as she moved to the other one, staking each tire as removed it from the truck. Raptor tilted his head as he watched her before she opened up one of his satchels and pulled a chain out, looping it through the tires before hooking the hook on one end through one of the chain loops. She knocked them over onto their sides and pulled the tires towards Raptor, letting it go once she was beside him. She looked at her tools and clicked her tongue a few times as she turned towards the technical.

“What else could I use?” she whispered to herself before her golden eyes latched onto the driver's seat. “Seat!” She grabbed the bars and hoisted herself up on it a bit to lean over the bars to unscrew the seat from it’s position only for her to stop and look up as she heard another bandit technical.

“Whatcha doin?” asked a voice making her look up to see Axton driving the technical with Zer0 in the gunner seat.

“Uh…” she started as she tilted her head to the side. “Scrapping a technical for parts.”

Axton laughed and shook his head. “What Lilith didn’t give you any jobs chasing after Tannis’ flower...genitalia?”

Zena snorted with laughter and shook her head. “I was passed out, hurt my side. I mean I heard Tannis talking about her weird flower genitalia. I didn’t help though and Lilith hasn’t given me any jobs so I’m just looking for stuff to make stuff until I’m told otherwise.”

“So you’re taking a chair?”

“Don’t judge me.” she spoke before going back into the front seat to completely remove it. Axton let out a chuckle before driving away as Zena removed the chair from the truck and jumped down. She paused and stared at Raptor for a moment. “I have literally no idea how I’m getting this back to the Backburner.”

She eventually figured out that she could put the seat in the tires, securing it so it wouldn’t fall out. Raptor decided right then and there he was gonna start randomly digging through the sand and she didn’t care, it kept her skag busy. He kicked up something that smacked his owner in the side and she let out a small grunt of pain. Looking, she tilted her head as she saw a skull laying there as Raptor kept digging. She clicked her tongue and snapped her fingers, the Skag stopping and looking at his owner.

She picked up the skull and turned it over in her hand. It was a skag skull but one way smaller than Raptor, probably a spitter skag. She attached it to the saddle and climbed herself up on Raptor’s saddle. “Alright boy, let's get this stuff back to the entrance to the Backburner and go back out, find more stuff.”

He almost instantly took off, barely giving her any time to quickly grab the chain. He was way too excited for being out and about, the last few days he had been stuck on Sanctuary. She left her stuff by the entrance and guided Raptor back the other way to head back the way they came. She wanted to get more parts but in reality, she didn’t know where she could find stuff aside from scrapping technicals if they crossed her path. She was riding Raptor up a sandy hill when she forced him to come to a stop. In front of her was what looked like an impact site and she paled slightly, pulling her ECHO out she switched over to her map.

“Dhal Abandon.” she whispered. “Fuck.”

The impact site in front of her was the site where Scooter’s body was found, along with the missile he road. She turned Raptor a bit and looked back the way she came as she tried to think. If Moxxi came out here it wouldn’t be good, granted she was...well she wasn’t okay but she was better with dealing with Scooter’s death, she’d most likely have a breakdown. Hell being here gave Zena a small touch of anxiety, Scooter wasn’t even her family. She didn’t carry him for nine months, she didn’t give birth to him or raise him, but staring at where she and Ellie cleaned up pieces of missile broke her heart.

Rubbing at her jaw, she exhaled heavily. “Alright.” She nudged Raptor to run around the impact crater before jumping down from his back once they neared the pile of missile parts. She and Ellie never got around to gathering the stuff and bring it to the junkyard, they just got too busy. “There’s one thing I can do.” She searched through the metal before finding a large piece of sheet metal, it was broken in one corner and it had burnt spots on it from either the impact or entering the atmosphere. “Alright buddy, I need you to hold this in your mouth.” He opened his mouth and lightly clamped his four jawed mouth down onto it, making sure his teeth didn’t bend or break the metal. “Good boy.”

She rode Raptor back to the Backburner entrance and got off him. She grabbed at chain with the tires on it and put it over her shoulder to drag it into the Backburner. She walked through the gate and moved them aside to shut the gate. She dragged it over to in front of Ellie’s garage and took the metal from Raptor before getting the skull off his saddle. She sat everything down, she began undoing the saddle and dropping it aside.

“Whatcha got there?” asked Ellie.

“Stuff and…” she motioned to the metal piece. “I...uh…”

Ellie looked at it and released a small sigh. “Is that from what I think it’s from?” Zena nodded and the older woman rubbed at the back of her head. “What do you plan on doing with it?”

That was a really good question. Zena had no idea, she could probably do something Scooter related either for the impact location or for Moxxi to have and possibly hang up in her bar; whether the one in Sanctuary if they got it back or this one. “I’ll figure it out. Do you have any tools I can use to cut or…?”

“Yeah, I’ll get them for you.” she answered before walking to a toolbox.

Zena nodded but turned and headed towards the bar for her backpack, she walked around the counter where Moxxi seemed to be dancing to the music she had playing. She rose a brow as she crouched beside her but instead of looking in her bag, she just stared at the brunette. The woman spun in a slow circle while moving her hips and the 20 year old bit at her own lower lip as she watched. Seeing the young woman staring at her, she winked and let her tongue peak out between her lips. The younger woman tilted her head as she watched her before pulling out a small pouch that contained her main tools like the chalk to draw out the design she wanted and various other items.

“We don’t have anywhere private, Mox. Don’t work me up.” she playfully chastised.

Hands grabbed her shirt and she was tugged closer, Moxxi’s tongue darting out to flick at her upper lip. “There’s always somewhere private.” she purred as she pressed against her and swayed her hips. The sound of a zipper being lowered made Zena look down to see Moxxi slowly unzipping her top.

Grabbing at her lover’s wrist, she pecked their lips together. “I’d love to fuck you right now but I’m trying to do something.”

Humming, Moxxi stopped unzipping her shirt but slid her hands into her shirt and rested her hands against her collar bones. “But I’m horny,.” she cooed.

Zena let out a laugh and pressed their foreheads together. “How exactly are you horny after what just happened?”

A thumb gently stroked at Zena’s left collar bone. “Cause you’re beautiful.” she cooed. “And strong. You could bend me over your knee and spank me.”

“Mm...like the bad girl you are.” purred the 20 year old, the giggle the brunette let out was cut off with a thick moan as she let her hand smack firmly against Moxxi’s ass; squeezing it afterwards.

Arms wrapped around her neck and Zena was pulled into a deep kiss, a tongue pushing its way into her mouth just mere seconds after their lips met. She backed Moxxi up against the counter and sat her items down on the counter before grabbing at her ass with one hand and wrapped her other arm around her waist. If there was one thing the younger woman loved most about kissing Moxxi was how she tasted, no matter what she ate somehow she always tasted sweet.

Someone cleared their throat and their lips broke apart. Ellie was standing there looking amused. “I got those tools you needed.”

Clearing her throat, she backed up and brought Moxxi’s right hand to her mouth to kiss her knuckles before grabbing her items to leave. “Was that necessary?” huffed the woman.

“Stop thirsting all over your girlfriend out in public, mama.” teased the mechanic.

Moxxi just narrowed her eyes and turned back to her temporary bar. Ellie walked back over to where Zena set the sheet metal. She silently took the tools, her cheeks tinged red which meant she was embarrassed about being caught making out with Moxxi. She opened up her little satchel and took out a piece of chalk to start drawing out what she had in mind for her project. She would spend the next few hours in the blistering sun as the other Vault Hunters dealt with trying to get Sanctuary back, in all honesty she was excused cause of her side. Lilith saw her side and decided against letting Zena do stuff, she didn’t want her getting more injured.

She had debated on what to do at first, it took several wipe downs before she came to terms with what she wanted. She had originally wanted to do Scooter’s symbol but that would’ve just been plain, she did however make a smaller version with a smaller piece of metal she had on her, and she already knew Moxxi had the sign back in Sanctuary and if she could, she’d go back there with the others to get a hold of it...if not then she’d make a whole new one. So what else was there to do? It took several attempts at drawing it correctly but she managed to draw silhouettes of herself and Moxxi, their hands clasped together. The hands and the one single heart above their hands, being the only thing that connected both silhouettes together. She sanded down the edges before taking her chalk and carefully drawing out their clothes, hair, and various other stuff like where Zena’s purple veins stood out, even if now they dulled down to a soft purple glow from time to time and not as bright.

She had some items she could make paint from and spent some time detailing a lot of what she planned on being colored. Tannis came over and snapped her fingers as Zena looked up at her, her paintbrush hovering above the metal. “Excuse me?” she asked as she saw the woman snap her fingers again. “I’m not a domestic skag that you can snap at.”

“I need to give you an injection so you can go into infected areas and not be affected by the poison.” she stated making Zena sit up and set her paintbrush down. She would definitely give it to Moxxi, she knew her lover just randomly grabbed stuff but she grabbed what she believed would be most important for Zena’s projects. “Lilith mentioned you might be accompanying the others to Sanctuary.”

Did she? To be honest, she had no idea what she told Lilith. “Sure.” she answered as Tannis held her hand out, Zena placed her wrist in her waiting hand and watched as the needle pushed into her underarm, the older woman injecting the serum into her arm. “So…”

“Give it around half an hour and it’ll be all set.” informed the doctor as she looked down at the work that Zena had been doing. “Hm...well that’s interesting.”

She wasn’t sure if Tannis was being sarcastic or being truthful, she could never tell with the woman. All she knew was that she was constantly propositioned even after she began dating Moxxi. She shook her head as Tannis walked away and crouched down to dip her brush into red paint and sign her name on the belt of her own pants before smiling. In all honesty, when she wasn’t hunting than she was working on projects. She couldn’t openly finish Moxxi’s ring in fear the woman would catch her but decided to try and do it later. She carried the project over to where she and Moxxi would most likely sleep, the couch in the bar, and leaned the project against the wall so any last minute drying could finish.

“The Vault Hunters and I are gonna go to Sanctuary in the morning.” spoke the Siren as Zena walked around the bar to kiss Moxxi’s cheek. “Are you coming?”

“In the morning?” she asked. Lilith nodded. “Yeah might as well. My ribs should be better tomorrow.” The brunette frowned at the mention of the ribs, obviously unaware that she worsened her ribs.

THose that Lilith managed to get from Sanctuary, and Tiny Tina who was here because she wanted to blow something up with Helios, settled down for the night and ate dinner. Thanks to Zer0 and Axton, they got some dinner for all of them to eat. Afterwards, everyone went to their respective areas to get some sleep for the night. Zena sat the pillows Vaughn gave her against the arm of the couch before unfolding the blanket as Raptor moved to lay down beside the curtain that Moxxi drew back to shield them from outside. As she sat down to undo her boots, she knit her brows together as she saw the brunette stand directly in front of her.

“Mox…”

“Show me your side.” she practically ordered. If she knew Moxxi was doing this as a form of foreplay, she did love when Moxxi took control, she’d be aroused by the order but the look on her face told the 20 year old that she wasn’t messing around. Zena sighed and grabbed at the zipper, pulling it down and shifting the left side of her top aside for Moxxi to see. The brunette moved to sit beside her and carefully trailed her fingers across the bruise. “It got worse?”

She nodded as she looked at the brunette. “When Lilith got whoever else was on Sanctuary out of there, she somehow teleported me several feet in the air and I landed on my side. I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

A hand slid across it before lips pressed against her jaw line. “I’m sleeping practically on you…”

“You won’t hurt me, Mox. You’ll be fine.” she cooed as she shifted to lay down on the couch, rolling onto her side while tucking her left arm under the pillows. The brunette sat her boots aside and undid her hat, setting it on the table beside several of Zena’s things and laid down on the couch. Rolling onto her side to face her and Zena smiled at her. “Would you rather be on the inside? I’m worried you might fall off during the night.”

“So sweet, I’ll be fine.” she cooed as she entangled her legs with her young lover’s and felt an arm wrap around her waist to keep her close, their stomachs mostly pressed together. She ran her knuckles across Zena’s cheek before trailing her fingers down to her jaw. “Good night kiss please.” She heard the younger woman chuckle before leaning forward to peck their lips together.

Zena grabbed the blanket and covered the both of them up as Moxxi kissed the top of her head and rested her chin where she kissed as her lover nuzzled her neck. Even if the 20 year old was taller than Moxxi, she was always the smaller spoon; she enjoyed being pressed against Moxxi and cuddled but that didn’t stop her from wrapping the brunette in her arms when she came home late and just hug her from behind.

It wasn’t unusual for the white haired woman to sleep outside but Moxxi wasn’t as used to it. The smallest of sounds made her wake up but it was like Zena knew cause she’d feel a gentle squeeze. She ended up falling into a deep sleep around 2am and when she woke, Zena was missing and not on the couch with her anymore. The curtain was pushed back but Raptor was laying in front of the bar as he chewed on some large bone she didn’t remember him having; Zena must’ve found it for him. She sat up and rubbed at her head as she released a small exhale before stretching, several joints popping in the process.

Raptor tilted his head back towards her before returning to his bone. Zena came walking up carrying two metal cups by their handles in her left hand and was carrying a plate in her right. “Coffee.” she spoke setting the cups down on the table.

“Where did you find coffee?”

“Crazy Earl. Marcus was in his bunker and asked for my help while I was out a few hours ago. Ultimately, I brought him back here cause Crazy Earl was driving him crazy.” she chuckled. “I had four Eridium on me and Crazy Earl gave me two cans of coffee for it. No cream or sugar though.”

The brunette made a face, she always had cream or sugar in her coffee but it was coffee nonetheless. “What’s that?” she asked as the plate was set down.

“Skag bacon and some fruits that Salvador found while on his way back with Maya while I was out.” she answered sitting beside her. She grabbed a piece of bacon and tossed it at Raptor, the skag catching it and chewing.

“You’re making him a cannibal.” teased Moxxi.

Zena chuckled and sipped at the bitter black coffee, cringing slightly before managing to get it down. “So does that make you a cannibal?” Moxxi looked confused as she sucked at the juice of the fruit she picked. “You eat me.” A loud gasp erupted from the older woman and she was shoved as the 20 year old busted out laughing.

Moxxi forced Zena onto her side and swiftly spanked her making a small mewl leave her. “You’re such a naughty girl.” she cooed as she rubbed at where she spanked, she knew it wouldn’t help much given the younger woman was wearing pants. She squeezed where she had spanked and saw the white haired woman staring at her while biting at her own lower lip. “You wanted to be spanked.” A giggle left Zena as she let the tip of her tongue peak out between her lips.

Leaning over, she pecked a kiss against her lips and the tip of her tongue making the 20 year old squeal. She sat up and grabbed a fruit, sinking her teeth into the fruit and sucking at the juices as Moxxi ate a piece of bacon. Lilith walked over making Zena removed the fruit from her mouth. “The others are ready.” she stated making the younger woman bite at the fruit and pulling the flesh away from what edible part. 

“Eat the rest.” she cooed as she stood up, grabbing her bow and quiver. “I’ll be back in a while, Raptor will stay here.”

“Be careful.” Moxxi ordered, it was never a suggestion. Moxxi always said it as an order, an order she knew was said with love. Zena moved over and pecked their lips together before going with Liltih.

Sanctuary was just infected, infected civilians and soldiers that worked for the douche bag Colonel Hector attacking them. It was Axton, Maya, Salvador, Zer0, Gaige, and Zena; the only one missing was Krieg but that’s cause they didn’t want to risk bringing him. He was strong but he was a psycho after all and wasn’t completely all there. They had to fight their way through Sanctuary’s streets, Zena stopping as they ran through Moxxxi’s. Hoisting herself over the counter, she reached up and grabbed the sign she had made for Moxxi she had about a year ago and put the rope over her shoulder so the sign rested against her back. If she was anyone else, it would’ve been heavy but it weighed nothing too her.

“You coming?” asked Maya.

“Yeah, gimmie a sec.” she stated moving into their house and moving to where Moxxi’s safe was. She opened it, knowing what the combo was, and grabbed certain items that belonged to Moxxi that her lover didn’t have time to grab and put them in her satchel. Lastly she grabbed two bottles, it being the main ingredients in the alcohol that Moxxi made Zena and Zafina.

They couldn’t go out towards Scooter’s garage, there were vines laying throughout Sanctuary and forced them to the center of the flying city. She pulled off the Maliwan sub machine gun off her back; she had opted to leave her bow and arrows back at the Backburner, she loved them but it would take longer to try and deal damage so she paid Zer0 for his Maliwan Hellfire. Zer0 caught her as she jumped down into the center of the city and they saw Hector standing on what seemed like a pile of plants. Once he saw them, he destroyed a vial on his right shoulder and began coughing, plants sprouting from his body as he collapsed.

Large vines shot up as he followed, his lower half either having been engulfed by the plant or replaced by plants. One of the vines went at them and they all quickly scattered, Zena throwing herself down and the vine went right over her as it tried to sweep itself at them. She rolled onto her back and fired at one of the vines only for another to hit her from behind and send her flying several feet away. She knew the impact was lessened cause of the sign on her back and knew if she had landed, it wouldn’t have been pretty but Maya managed to catch her in her Phaselock. It gave her enough time to correct herself before it stopped and she was dropped, she landed on her feet; stumbling back a bit.

They were pretty much all unloading on the vines, trying to dodge being hit. Gaige had pulled out Deathtrap and thankfully the robot was doing most of the up close and personal work. Salvador had resulted to using two assault rifles as Zena fired her gun at Hector. So after today, she was really going to hate plates, she had the awareness of a...well she couldn’t think of an actual creature but it sucked. She was smacked once again with a vine and she hit the ground and rolled a few more times, hissing as the heart of the sign bit into her back and broke the skin. She pulled the sign off her, it was dented in the middle and she rolled her shoulders, as if that would alleviate the pain. 

“Zena!” shouted a voice making her look up to see a vine coming at her again. She quickly stood up and wrapped her arms around it as it slammed into her stomach, it forced her to slide a few feet back but she tightened her arms around it. “Fucking shoot him!” she shouted as she removed her knife and stabbed the vine with it, it quickly retreated from her as the other five unloaded their guns into Hector until he slumped down.

“He’s gone. You did it! Get the Vault Key!” shouted Lilith making Zena run up over to where Hector was. Reaching for the Vault Key, she was shot back by a barrier and she hit the ground. Gaige ran to her and helped her up. “Stay back!”

Hector laughed. “You’re too late! My roots have grown into the heart of this city -- and next, all of Pandora!”

The young woman inhaled only to flinch as her ribs throbbed. “Fuck.” she hissed. She had been trying to turn herself if the vine came at her from the left but she didn’t manage to the last time. She knew nothing else was broken or that it was worse but it hurt.

“Change of plans. Vault Hunters! We have to get out of there. I’ll contain the infection. Get me some Eridium! There’s a big cache nearby!”

“You’re not welcome in the new world!” shouted Hector.

“Lets go!” shouted Axton as they all took off running towards Crazy Earl’s. 

It made sense actually. They paid the man in Eridium so of course he’d have it stock piled. They opened the door and saw piles of the stuff, Zena ripped the door off the handles as the others went to grab it. They piled the Eridium onto the door and Zena pushed it, forcing herself to fight through the pain as she pushed the now large pile of currency; the other helping her get it up the small staircase to bring it to the middle of Sanctuary.

Zena pushed it towards where her ECHO was telling her too. “You’ve lost! This ship is mine! The key is mine! Pandora is mine!” shouted Hector as Zena stopped, Lilith was there using her powers to try and contain the infection.

“Take it!” she shouted as Lilith looked at her.

“Sorry Killers.” chuckled the Siren. “This is the only way. Trust me.”

The 20 year old ran at the sign and grabbed hold of the rope before sighing as she saw the woman begin to glow purple and as did all the Vault Hunters. “I swear to fuck if I end up eight feet above the ground…” she managed out before they were all teleported from Sanctuary.

They all appeared in the Backburner and Zena dropped the sign into sand where she was standing and stared up at Sanctuary as a large purple glow came from it. Tina ran at her and jumped on her back, the older woman swallowing back a noise of pain as the young girl clung to her. That was when Sanctuary exploded and the force almost knocked everyone over. Someone shouted Lilith but to be completely honest, Zena had no idea who it was. They all had the same thought; Lilith must’ve sacrificed herself but those thoughts were put to rest when the Siren appeared in the Backburner.

“Lilith.” spoke Brick, everyone looked at him. “That...was...AWESOME! YEAH!”

“I destroyed Sanctuary.” stated the Siren.

Ellie rolled her eyes and helped Lilith up. “Is that freaky tree man dead?”

Brick walked over and put a hand on Ellie’s shoulder he looked down at Lilith. “Hey, Roland would’ve done the same thing.”

“Holy crap, I am so jealous! I’ve wanted to blow up that ship forever!” gushed Tina as Zena chuckled and shifted the young girl on her back. “I’m cool, I’m cool.”

Tannis was looking down at an ECHO device as she approached them. “I calculated that there was a eighty-six point four percent chance that Sanctuary would have exploded as soon as it reached escape velocity.” They all turned towards her either with looks of confusion or annoyed looks. “Perhaps I should’ve mentioned that sooner?”

Lilith rolled her eyes as Tina slid off Zena’s back and walked towards Brick and Mordecai. The young woman grunting in pain as Moxxi showed up, hugging her tightly. “Ribs.” she wheezed making the woman quickly stop and looked worried, instead the younger woman kissed her forehead.

“Sanctuary. The map. Everything’s gone.” spoke Lilith.

“Hey, you made the call. We’re all still here. Nothing else matters.” Mordecai stated, his way of reassuring the Siren.

The woman turned and looked up at where Sanctuary had been. “I guess you’re right.”

“So uh...what now?” asked Mordecai.

Lilith turned back towards them. “Up there, Hector showed me the map. I saw the Vaults, connected somehow, part of something bigger. I don’t know what it means. Look, we may have lost the map, but we never needed it before. We have to find the Vaults before they fall into the wrong hands. We have to keep searching. And that means leaving Pandora. But I can’t go with you. Not yet.” Brick high fived Mordecai as Lilith moved. “Someone has to rebuild the Raiders. We need new blood, new badasses if we’re going to be ready for the next fight. Find the Vaults. Now matter how far it takes you, no matter what happens, you will always be Crimson Raiders!” Most of them cheered, Tina probably the loudest but it was Tina, and walked away probably to start preparing.

“Hey.” said Zafina walking up.

“Hey.” was all Zena answered with.

The older woman tossed a box at her daughter and she caught it. Knitting her brows together, she opened it and saw the ruby had been placed in it’s place. She didn’t remember doing that. “I had some time.” chuckled the woman.

“What is that?” asked Moxxi.

The younger woman shifted her jaw a bit as she chuckled. “It’s uh...a ring I put together to ask you to marry me.” she smirked making Moxxi’s eyes widen. “Although I made the band, I planned on putting the ruby in it but mom finished it while I was busy.”

The brunette tilted her head. “Was that your proposal? Cause it kinda sucked.” she laughed.

“Yeah. I could’ve done better but I’m in pain.” laughed Zena as she kissed her lover’s head.

Moxxi hummed and looked at the ring. “Ask me properly.”

Resting her head against Moxxi’s, she inhaled about as deeply as she could without causing herself pain. “Marry me?”

“Yes.” the woman took the ring from the box and looked at it. Zena shifted and took it from her, slipping the finger on the woman’s left ring finger and she kissed her knuckles.

Ellie chuckled and smiled at her mother before walking over to Lilith. “Well, ol’ Sanctuary went out in a way that would’ve make Scooter happy…killin’ a big ass tree!”

Moxxi busted out laughing and Ellie smiled at her mother’s reaction. “Oh god, it’s sad but true.” laughed the older woman as Zena hugged her close. She lifted Moxxi up in her arms and the woman squealed as she kissed at the woman’s upper chest, mainly cause it was in her face. She was happy, Moxxi said yes and she was gonna marry her, marry her and eventually leave Pandora.

“That was a nice speech back there, Lil. Really tugged at the ol’ heartstrings. But why is it REALLY that you’re stayin’ here?” inquired the mechanic.

Lilith stared up at the sky and smiled. “That Vault Map’s still out there, Ellie. And when I find it, THEN I can leave Pandora.”

“I’ma hold you to that, string bean.” informed Ellie with a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 5 will take place during Borderlands 3 so don't expect and update for another few weeks. At most I can start the chapter but I can't finish it until I've played the first few hours of 3 when it comes out next Friday (September 13th).


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